"Any of you guys find anything?" One clone of Naruto called out to the others in the library.
"I got a map of the village with the clan districts listed," another clone excitedly whisper-shouted.
"Awesome!" the first clone cheered. "Does it say if it's in use or if it's abandoned?"
The other clone shook his head, but a third clone chimed in with his nose in another book. "Says here that the Shodai encouraged the Senju Clan to intermingle with the village, so a lot of the clan just ended up marrying into other families rather than sticking with their own."
"Why would they do that?" a fourth clone, this one scanning through a bunch of maps of the clan districts piped up.
"Something about fostering the Will of Fire," the third clone dismissively replied, and the other clones sent back varying degrees of phlegmatic expressions.
The first clone grunted, and then he turned to a group of clones that were huddled around a set of books and scrolls in the corner. "What about you guys?"
When they didn't respond, he almost shouted at them to get their attention, but the memory of the librarian's glare at the front desk kept him silent. Instead, he wandered over to them to see what had captured their attention, and a few other clones peered over in curiosity, as well.
"What's up?" he asked, approaching the enraptured group. "You guys find somethin'?"
The group of three clones looked up from the open book surrounded by the mess of other texts they collected with pensive expressions, and then one of them slid the book over to the first clone.
"The Shodai's wife," one of them lowly muttered, piquing the first clone's interest.
Said clone's eyes widened into planets when he read the name of the woman in question.
"Mito… Uzumaki??" he balked, and the rest of the clones abandoned their stations to gather around the table.
"…Is she related to us?" one of the many clones carefully inquired.
"Dunno," the clone that slid the book shrugged. "Just says that she married the Shodai and was originally from a different nation."
"Political marriage between clans," one of the other clones sitting at the table mumbled, very much unsure about how to process that information.
The word, "clans," stuck out in every clone's brain. Obviously, the Senju Clan was part of that union, but that also just confirmed the Boss's suspicions that there was an Uzumaki Clan to go along with the Uzumaki Temple. It also confirmed that there was an Uzumaki Clan in the village's history, one significant enough to be entwined with one of the founders of the village…
So much for the old man always telling the Boss that he had no family. Even if he had no living relatives, it at least would have been nice to be let in on any information about his clan's existence. Hell, even a passing hint that there were once people like him would've gone a long way in making him feel less alone.
"Well, no use crying over spilled milk," the first clone eventually asserted, shaking the rest of the clones out of their collective funk. "We have the general location of the Senju compound, and we have a lead on our own clan. One of you dispel and send that info back to Boss, and then we'll continue this deep dive to learn whatever else we can about her."
"Right!" the clones said in unison, but they all flinched when a harsh shushing noise came from the librarian at the desk.
"Right!" they whisper-shouted instead, and one of the clones vanished in a puff of smoke.
Back at the arena, the memories of the clone returned to Naruto right as Sasuke left the field. He blinked as the new information made its way through his brain, and his eyes momentarily widened before an uncharacteristic scowl took shape on his face. He knew the old man had always been lying to him, but now he was unearthing the extent of his deceit. There were so many instances in which the Sandaime looked him in the eye with a downcast expression and told him that he didn't know who his parents were, nor if he had any family to speak of, and that was that. He never once brought up the connection to the Uzumaki Clan, nor did he ever bring up anyone named Mito.
And yet, the most insulting thing about it all was that all of this information was freely available for Naruto to find at the library. At any point, Naruto could've dug into the village's history and discovered these inconsistencies. Did the Sandaime really think so low of him that he'd just assume that Naruto would never think to check the library for readily available information about his potential family?
…Fair, honestly. He wouldn't have even done it if not for the Kyubi's suggestion.
"Your Hokage thinks of you as an idiot, and he isn't wrong."
A long-suffering sigh slipped out of Naruto's lips in response to his tenant's wonderful contribution to his spiral. Doing his best to ignore the jab, he turned to greet his triumphant teammate as he stepped back into the competitors' booth.
"That was awesome, Sasuke!" Naruto cheered, putting on a bit more excitement than necessary.
Sasuke just shrugged, placing his hands in his nonexistent pockets. "I thought he'd be stronger. Even you could've taken him down."
"Oh, don't be so modest, Sasuke," Sakura chimed in with a beaming smile. "That was a fantastic performance. You showed everyone why you're still the top dog amongst the genin."
"Careful, Sakura," Naruto playfully chided. "Don't want his ego to inflate any more than it already has."
"My ego could never inflate to the size of your big ass head," Sasuke fired back with a smirk.
Sakura stifled a giggle, meanwhile, Naruto's eye twitched, and he rolled up his sleeve. "How about I smash you with this big ass head?!"
"Make it past Gaara first," Sasuke brushed him off, stepping toward the guard rail to get a view of the arena. "Then again, Sakura will probably spank you in the next round anyway."
"Pft, I bet Sakura could give me a way better fight than you ever could," Naruto shot back with a smirk of his own, which only grew at the sight of Sasuke's eye twitching and Sakura triumphantly sticking her tongue out at the both of them.
"The next set of combatants, Sakura Haruno and Temari of Sunagakure; make your way to the battlefield!" Genma announced from the ground below.
Temari, miffed at being openly disregarded as an opponent, opened her fan with a huff and hopped onto it, lowering herself to the ground in flashy fashion while sending Sakura a challenging glare.
"I guess that's my cue," Sakura said, letting loose a brief sigh to free herself of any burgeoning anxiety. Fortunately, Naruto's loving pat on the back did wonders in putting that anxiety to bed.
"Kick her ass, Sakura!" he enthusiastically encouraged.
"Knock 'em dead," Sasuke followed up, sending a nod her way.
Nodding back with a determined smile, she made her way out of the booth and down the stairs, eventually emerging from the dark corridor to thunderous fanfare. She may not have had a prestigious clan name, but it was clear that the crowd would root for the hometown player over the foreigner. Sasuke's fight had already electrified the crowd beyond belief as it was.
Once Sakura and Temari were finally face-to-face in the center of the arena, Genma cleared his throat. "The next bout of the first round: Sakura Haruno vs. Temari of Sunagakure!"
Sakura's suspicions about the crowd's allegiances were confirmed when their names were announced, and it didn't surprise her to see an already disgruntled Temari's expression grow even more sour.
Orochimaru wasn't quite sure how to feel. Sasuke's fight impressed him, as the progress he had made in such a short amount of time was nothing to scoff at and only made the prospect of swiping him away from Konoha that much more delicious. However, his interest had peaked when Sasuke willfully activated the cursed seal amid the Hyuga's bluster, but it became a combination of disappointment at it being used as only a momentary boost to force his tenketsu back open and begrudging intrigue at the startling battle IQ displayed. Using your opponent's mental and emotional turmoil against them in the middle of a battle was a very nice play.
That Hyuga boy, though… the sheer volume of hatred in his gaze practically screamed, "future missing-nin," and he was certainly skilled enough to be guided into something useful. Perhaps if the boy was still alive and in working order following whatever the Hyuga Clan was sure to do to him in the medical bay after his defeat, Orochimaru would send some agents to sway him to his side with the promise of freedom from his accursed clan. He didn't particularly desire a Hyuga, but he could be a nice vessel to have in the meantime of prepping Sasuke if nothing else.
"That duel must have really struck you to be so introspective," Hiruzen chuckled at the Kazekage disguise. "While Neji Hyuga is a truly unfortunate case, Sasuke Uchiha is certainly a marvel to bear witness to."
"Indeed, he is," Orochimaru nodded, maintaining his Rasa impression. "I would have preferred to see the Uchiha in action against my youngest son, but I suppose a battle between jinchuriki and sons of Kage will suffice."
That got the reaction he was hoping for, as Hiruzen's gaze immediately hardened and locked onto him. "Rasa" let loose a dry chuckle in response. "Don't give me that. He blanketed the stadium with its chakra just now. He broadcasted to the world that he was a jinchuriki."
"Don't be cute with me, boy," Hiruzen icily warned, and Orochimaru had to fight back a guffaw.
"I'm not an idiot, Hiruzen," he chided. "You'd have to be to not spot the resemblance. I won't tell anyone if that's what you're so concerned with."
"See that you don't," Hiruzen left it at that, keeping his stony gaze fixed on his fellow Kage. The warning was implicit but very much expressed, and while a decrepit fuck in Orochimaru's esteemed opinion, Hiruzen Sarutobi wasn't the strongest of the five Kage for no reason.
Well, it wouldn't be that way by day's end.
Temari would never admit to being afraid. She was a proud kunoichi of Sunagakure, one of her village's strongest wind users and best practitioners of tessenjutsu, and she had grown up with a monster in human form. Make no mistake, she loved her brothers to pieces, but even she would readily admit that she did her best to avoid agitating her twisted, homicidal baby brother, so it was more accurate to say that barring anything involving Gaara (and who wasn't afraid of him?), Temari would never admit to being afraid.
But the girl standing across from her, alongside her team? That fucking team of monsters?
They terrified her.
Sure, word of the scion of the Uchiha Clan had made its rounds, and the idea of him being exceptionally competent for a genin wasn't particularly farfetched for the clan's reputation. Naruto Uzumaki was a surprise to be certain, but given that he was clearly a similar brand of monster to Gaara (she wasn't an idiot; she could reasonably narrow down what biju he possessed based on Konoha's recent history and his uncanny resemblance to their late Yondaime), him proving himself to be a considerable threat wasn't too farfetched either.
So what the fuck did that make Sakura Haruno, the run-of-the-mill shinobi with no great expectations? She didn't possess a clan name (at least not one Temari was at all familiar with), she wasn't the slightest bit threatening during their brief encounter before the exams, and while the way she damn near brutalized her opponent during the preliminaries was entertaining, Temari didn't see anything that grabbed her attention one way or the other.
So, naturally, she was thrown for a nebula of loops when Sakura fucking Haruno unleashed an aura so heavy that it would've planted her and Kankuro to the ground under normal circumstances. It only hadn't because it was competing with her teammate casually flexing his biju's chakra for all the world to feel just to keep his comrade from storming the field and killing the Hyuga, and even still, they weren't the only presences in the booth. Gaara was there, and he was literally salivating, chomping at the bit to unleash the beast and spill some blood.
How in the FUCK was Gaara the least threatening person in the room off of sheer chakra presence?? Exactly what the hell were they feeding this team?? Was Copy-nin Kakashi just that good of a sensei? Was Konoha attempting to groom a new generation of Sannin? If they were, they were doing a really fucking good job of it so far.
Obviously, these three would have to die in the invasion, but there was no way in hell Temari would be able to accomplish that, so she could only hope that Gaara succeeded in killing Naruto Uzumaki in their fight, and he would succeed because Gaara never looses. The only person who could subdue him was their father… right?
Meanwhile, Sakura remained outwardly composed, maintaining a determined readiness and idly watching Genma raise his arm to the side of them.
"Begin!"
No sooner than Genma sliced the air with his hand did Temari leap into action, refusing to take any chances with her opponent.
"Wind Scythe Jutsu!" she cried, swinging her fan and unleashing a gust of wind that was felt throughout the entire venue. Genma and even much of the crowd had to brace themselves from the colliding wind currents, and at the epicenter of it all was Sakura, doing her best to shield her face with the sleeves of her trench coat as she waited out the momentous scud.
Temari nearly smirked, believing that Sakura was a sitting duck against the wind blades within the gust which were certain to take her down via death by a thousand cuts. "Nearly" being the operative word was important, though, as Sakura weathered the storm and, to Temari's consternation, came out the other end looking no worse for wear.
"Is that it?" Sakura asked, her tone far too genuine for Temari's comfort.
"If that's not enough, you're more than welcome to some more!" Temari shouted back, swinging her fan once more for another Wind Scythe Jutsu with even more oomph put into it. Another powerful gust blasted through the arena, even carving through the topsoil as the currents converged onto Sakura once again.
And yet again, Sakura merely stood there, bracing herself with her arms and weathering the storm without moving an inch. The only difference this time around was the presence of shallow cuts in her trench coat, but Sakura herself was pretty much untouched.
'What the fuck??' Temari internally barked, unable to keep the frustrated befuddlement from showing in her expression. 'Is she redirecting all the currents…? No, that would require a level of mastery over wind that even I don't have yet. She must be tanking the attacks, which explains the cuts in her coat, but what the hell is that thing even made of if it's handling wind blades this easily?!'
It was only the sudden scraping of the dirt that alerted Temari to defend, as Sakura appeared before her in the blink of an eye with a haymaker that would have slammed into her jaw had she not brought her fan up to block the hit. The loud clang that reverberated through the arena upon impact didn't make her feel any safer.
"Eye on the ball!" Sakura chided with a teasing smirk, throwing another punch that was deftly avoided but refusing to relinquish her advantage.
Sakura continued her sudden assault, relentlessly attacking Temari and giving her little to no room to strike back. Temari was left blocking and deflecting the taijutsu barrage with her fan (the resulting clangs of which were reminiscent of slamming stone onto bronze) or simply dodging the hits that made it past her impromptu shield. The one opportunity for a counterstrike that she was able to capitalize on only amounted to her swinging her fan like a club, which Sakura avoided by bending with unnerving flexibility and followed up by sweeping Temari's legs, bringing her to the ground.
The fact that it felt like she was chop blocked by a tree was the last straw for Temari, and she sprang up in an instant before leaping away to create some much-needed space. Only then did she finally notice some abnormalities in her opponent: for one, Sakura's legs were unnaturally brown from the calf down, meanwhile the small glimpses of her arms poking out of her sleeves indicated that they were the same color (her fists were, at least) contrasting the rest of her pale skin. A quick mental scan of all the earth jutsu she was aware of given Suna's tumultuous history with Iwa led her to settle on a partial use of the Earth Spear Jutsu at play.
'Clever, pink-haired bitch.'
This was already proving to be troublesome, and the match had only just begun. Taijutsu wasn't Temari's strong suit, and so long as Sakura was pushing earth chakra through her limbs to empower her strikes, whatever advantage Sakura already had in that department was increased tenfold. Temari couldn't let her land a hit lest she risk a broken everything. She needed to keep her at a distance.
Popping open her battle fan once more, Temari poured twice as much chakra into her next attack. "Wind Style: Cyclone Scythe!"
As promised, a far more violent spat of wind currents jettisoned from the fan, carving actual trenches through the terrain and sucking up anything and everything into the vacuum pockets that were cleaving a path toward Sakura. The crowd was in awe at the power on display, having already been invested in Sakura's seemingly inhuman punching power, and it looked to them as though Temari had finally managed to even the odds.
So, naturally, Sakura narrowed her gaze and quickly ran through a seal sequence that got an audible cheer from the Uchiha viewing party in the Pure World. Without a word, she spat a giant orb of fire at the approaching wind jutsu, and the collision that followed resulted in a brilliant blaze of glory that illuminated half of the battlefield. The crowd's awes had become an excited ovation, and even Sasuke sent a nod of approval to the clever use of his clan's jutsu. He at least now knew he didn't regret teaching her the Fireball Jutsu to get a basis for how to properly mold the chakra for the jutsu Anko gave her.
Temari, meanwhile, was feeling her frustration return in full measure, but she kept her focus on getting away from the bright flash of flames that was more luminous than concussive. However, a problem quickly presented itself once she created yet more space: Sakura was nowhere to be found. The flames had died down, as had the wind, and there was nothing on the battlefield that would give her any places to hide considering Temari kept the trees behind her at all times. So, if she wasn't in front of nor above her, nor could she have scampered around her that quickly to hide in the trees, that only left…
Her instincts yoinked her into the sky like a marionette mere milliseconds before Sakura's arms burst from underground and grabbed air instead of Temari's ankles. The rest of her upper body popped out next, and she shot an annoyed glare at Temari gliding in the air up above. Not wasting any time, she fully unearthed herself and unsealed two scrolls from her trench coat, unraveling both at once and slamming them to the ground. Within moments, two torrents of water poured into the arena, quickly creating a massive pond around her that she hastily took advantage of by performing three seals and then cannonballing into the water.
"Water Style: Ripping Torrent!" Sakura shouted, surprising Temari as well as the crowd when the splashing water began cycling around her like a makeshift water spout.
While Sakura's chakra control was excellent, it wasn't so perfect (nor did she yet have the volume) to cast this jutsu in the palm of her hand like it traditionally would have been. As a result, she utilized her fine control to her advantage by wielding her entire body as a focal point for the water to coil around, generating an aquatic cyclone of sorts that progressively surged into the sky. Her teammates, sensei, and Anko were on their feet and cheering her on every step of the way, and the crowd wasn't far behind, loudly enthralled with the stops she was pulling out in this battle.
In contrast, hidden amongst the audience was Tenzo in full ANBU regalia silently grumbling about his former captain stealing one of his jutsu and passing it on to a genin.
Back in the air, Temari was growing paler by the second as the vortex progressively swelled. She didn't know what the hell this jutsu did, and she didn't want to know, but she couldn't defend herself as long as she was still in the air. The best she could do was avoid whatever was to come, and avoid it she did, as a pulse of chakra from Sakura made the vortex lash out at Temari like a whip. She jerkily steered her fan as best as she could to avoid lash upon lash, watery blades soaring into the sky like confetti until one finally struck true and smacked her out of the air like a swatted fly. She was able to right herself and land on her feet in the slowly diminishing puddle just in time for Sakura to appear in her vision once again with a blackened fist locked and loaded to knock her out. She only just barely brought her fan up to block this one, and thank goodness she did, as the clang that followed was heard even by the shadow clones in the library.
Skidding back on her heels in shock, she jumped away yet again to create space (Kankuro would never let her live this down, she just knew it), and she shot an incredulous glare at her huffing opponent. "What the fuck are they feeding you people?!"
Unable to fight the titter that escaped her, Sakura clutched her aching wrist as the Earth Spear Jutsu finally deactivated. "I only recently stopped dieting if you can believe it."
Temari felt her brain nearing the cusp of short-circuiting before Sakura spoke up again.
"I don't think either of us will get anywhere in this fight like this," Sakura continued, tugging at the collar of her trench coat. "So, I'm sorry in advance, but I'll have to start going all out now."
"Wait what-"
Temari didn't get another word out before Sakura finally slipped out of her coat, visibly sighing in relief before tossing the odd, tan garment over her head and far behind her, long beyond the bounds of the waterlogged ground. Temari watched the coat strangely soar through the air in begrudging curiosity on its missile-like arc toward the ground.
Then it finally crashed into the dirt and literally cratered the ground under it, freezing Temari's blood cold and sending a jolt of shock throughout the crowd. Many in attendance were downright gawking, particularly those in Sakura's graduating class who couldn't wrap their minds around her having made such incredible strides in such a short period…
Or perhaps it was simply incredulity at her wearing a fucking weighted trench coat.
Could be either one, really.
Speaking of Sakura, she was relishing the weight now off of her shoulders and stretching the kinks out of her muscles with a satisfied groan. "So much better."
Her gaze then locked onto a swearing Temari, and gleaming, predatory green met trepidatious teal before she pounced. Sakura was in front of Temari in no time at all and burying a devastating fist into her gut, knocking the wind out of her and damn near folding Temari over her fist. A lightning-fast flurry of strikes immediately followed, crashing into her like a horribly flexible freight train rather than merely peppering her with the blows.
Temari tried to defend, she really did; every swing of her fan was deftly ducked just for Sakura to ruthlessly abuse the opening it left, while every swipe of her arm to return fire was batted away to allow for a brutal elbow-to-the-sternum and uppercut combo. Even when she tried to retreat, Sakura just reminded her that she was faster and met her at every new spot with a roundhouse kick to emphasize how little use it was to resist. Sakura struck like a coiled viper, getting in to do her damage and retreating in one swift motion, except she was doing so in rapid succession, which just led to her tagging Temari like a pole at a playground.
To the outside observer, Temari was stuck getting smacked around in a scene so reminiscent of her brother against Rock Lee in the preliminaries, only this time around, she had 0 means of defending against it beyond shutting the hell up and taking it. However, a particularly hard kick to the gut rocketing her away from immediate danger showed why that wasn't quite the case, as Temari had been molding chakra the entire time and unleashed it with a violent swing of her fan.
"Wind Scythe!" she bellowed, firing the familiar gust at Sakura who, without her coat, didn't have the means to tank it this time.
That proved true when Sakura chose to avoid this one, but Temari didn't give her any breathing room, swinging her fan again and again with Wind Scythe Jutsus unleashed in rapid succession. Sakura was doing her best to stray just far enough out of the way of the sharp currents and vacuum pockets now spattering the arena, but that became tricky when Temari geared up to unleash another Cyclone Scythe Jutsu that would undoubtedly fill all of those gaps and leave her no room to evade regardless of her speed advantage.
Sakura flew through a quick series of seals that ended with the tiger seal before swiftly retrieving two handfuls of senbon from her holsters on either thigh. Then, she threw the senbon at Temari right as Temari fired the Cyclone Scythe, and as expected by everyone in attendance, the monstrous scuds tore through the battlefield and battered the senbon away. However, what the crowd did not expect was another, far more radiant fireball to erupt alongside them, igniting the rest of the lingering wind currents and turning Temari's impromptu wind tunnel against her. Hidden amongst the real senbon Sakura threw was the Senbon Inferno Jutsu, Anko's very own jutsu that had been gifted to her for this match, and as it was wont to do, it ignited into a gargantuan blaze that feasted on the masses of wind present.
Just like Team 7 had been when they were first introduced to the jutsu, Temari was knocked on her ass by the sheer force of the ignition, and she was left gawking at the towering inferno that now surrounded her, obscuring her view of the audience and the rest of the arena. It was like she was now surrounded in a hell of her own creation seeing that her wind was weaponized against her. It was just further confirmation to her that this team was the epitome of danger.
Suddenly, her train of thought was derailed when Sakura emerged from the flames, seemingly remaining unaffected by the fire kissing her hair and skin like a demon rising out of hell. Her advance toward Temari was steady yet no less frightening, causing Temari to frantically scoot backward. She watched as black lines emerged from Sakura's collarbone and spread across her skin like a full body tattoo, and her approach grew even more unnerving when her gaze darkened into something sinister.
Temari, genuinely fearful of the girl before her, quickened her retreat and reached for her fan. However, Sakura was in front of her in a flash and literally punted the fan out of reach just before she could grab it, forcing Temari to violently scoot back until her retreat was cut short by the wall of the arena. With nowhere else to run, she planted her back to the wall and sweated profusely, her skin a pale white as the cold, homicidal aura of Sakura bore down on her like a lead blanket in contrast to the unyielding heat enveloping her in a mocking pigeonhole. With Sakura now only steps away, her left eye transitioned from the predatory green Temari had been accustomed to into a horrifically familiar, pitch-black sclera with a golden diamond in the center, all the while, the left half of her face metamorphosed into a monstrous, sandy grin.
"I give!" Temari cried, refusing to face this demon in human skin any longer. "I concede! I quit!!"
Unfortunately, her torment wouldn't end so soon, as Sakura's right hand snatched Temari by the throat anyway. She clamped down on it and lifted her off the ground, dragging her up the wall along the way and giving Temari a long, tearful, and unmistakable gaze into the horrific eye of Shukaku as a sadistic smile crept across the human half of Sakura's face.
Temari knew she was going to die. She only hoped her baby brother would one day forgive her for not being the sister he deserved.
Then, the world froze; the overbearing malice that was crushing her alongside the sweltering heat vanished, and Sakura began to disintegrate. Within moments, her body exploded into a shower of sakura petals, flabbergasting Temari to no end. Just like that, it was over; the flames that had been towering over her like devilish spires were now much lower to the ground and far less suffocating, and the aura of the beast that had been ready to devour her was nowhere to be seen. Rather than being held off her feet, Temari was sitting against the wall with a normal-looking Sakura holding a kunai to her throat. The only thing amiss about her was her victorious smile with a bit of her tongue poking out.
"Winner by forfeit, Sakura Haruno!" Genma announced to a thunderous ovation from the crowd.
"Holy fuck…" Anko muttered, a fusion of shock and pride swelling within.
"Holy fuck is right," Kurenai agreed. "Had I known she'd show this much promise, I might've fought a little bit harder to have her during squad assignments."
"Well, she's mine now," Anko snickered, and Kurenai could only shake her head with a sigh. "What did she cast on the Suna girl, by the way? I didn't teach her any genjutsu, so I'm guessing Kakashi did."
"Hell Viewer," Kurenai answered. "She let Temari's own brain do the heavy lifting. I don't know what she saw, but whatever it was, it clearly wasn't pretty."
True to her word, Temari was still trying to shake away the trauma as Sakura helped her to her feet while Genma doused the flames with a water jutsu.
Konoha was lucky that Orochimaru had to keep up appearances for the plan, otherwise they would have witnessed the return of his Dance of Righteous Vindication unseen within the walls of the village since before the Second War. He knew fucking potential when he saw it, and he saw it in spades with Team 7. Even the pink one had potential; she not only survived her branding, but she was lightyears ahead of the pathetic whelp she had been in their first encounter.
To make matters even sweeter, he saw Anko's influence in her taijutsu as clear as day, and she seemed to take to it well enough. Perhaps she'd be a suitable fit for further instruction in the taijutsu of the Snakes, or even his own brand of serpentine slaughter…
Time would tell. She still needed to survive what was to come.
"See! I told you Sakura would give me a better fight than you ever would!" Naruto declared with a grin as Sakura exited the battlefield and Temari was sequestered away by medics.
"Which is exactly why it'll be me fighting her in the final round instead of you," Sasuke fired back with a smirk before his gaze shifted to Shino on his other side. "No offense."
"None taken," Shino replied. "Truthfully, I do not like my hive's chances against your arsenal of ninjutsu, assuming I'm correct in my suspicions that you can turn yourself into a human bug zapper."
"You'd understand if I'd rather not say one way or the other, right?" Sasuke replied with a quirked eyebrow, to which Shino nodded.
"Thank you, by the way," Shino switched gears, piquing Sasuke's interest. "Neji may have survived his fight with you, but given the nature of his injuries and precarious position within his clan, I doubt that will be the case for very long. These parameters are acceptable."
Before either Sasuke or Naruto could react to that, an agitated growl captured their attention. The three turned to see Gaara glaring murderously at the field, sand swirling dangerously around him.
"I'm tired of waiting!" Gaara declared, vanishing from the booth in sandy vortex and appearing at the center of the arena shortly after Genma and Raido were finishing up with repairing the terrain.
"Kid, what are you-" Genma irritatedly began, but Gaara ignored him and turned his glare up to the competitor's booth, landing squarely on Naruto.
"Uzumaki!" Gaara addressed with murder on his mind. "Come down here so I can spill your blood!"
"Uhhh…" Genma floundered, not entirely sure if he should knock the brat out so he could properly wait his turn, but one look towards his nonchalant Hokage led him to shrug. "Whatever. Might as well start now. The final bout of the first round, Gaara of Sunagakure vs. Naruto Uzumaki!"
Naruto, ignoring the crowd's roar of anticipation, kept his gaze rooted on Gaara down below. It was his time to shine, for better or for worse. Kakashi had been pretty frank with him during the month of training about the danger Gaara posed and how difficult a fight with him would inevitably be. He needed to unleash everything in his arsenal (barring the obvious) to make it out in one piece. Adjacently, Naruto and the Kyubi had been throwing around some strategies in regard to fighting Gaara without agitating the Jubi…
There weren't a ton of options on that front.
"You're up," Sasuke said, snagging Naruto out of his rumination and earning a silent nod from him.
"Good luck, Naruto," Shino said with a respectful nod, and it was returned in equal measure.
Before Naruto could walk toward the darkness, however, Sasuke's hand landed on his shoulder, and he looked to see a deadly serious expression in place of his usual impassivity.
"That guy's a psycho," Sasuke said, not mincing words whatsoever. "He wants to kill you, and he'll try to do that the first chance he gets. If at any point you feel like you need an equalizer, do not hesitate."
"Do you mean…" Naruto trailed off, his gaze landing on his left shoulder.
"Not that," Sasuke said, and then he pointed to Naruto's stomach. "That."
Naruto's surprise was plain to see, and it only grew at Sasuke's next words. "The village can think whatever they want, but I'd rather not lose a teammate today. I'm confident that you can win this fight, but I want you to survive, as well."
Naruto took a moment to process all of that. Receiving both encouragement and concern for his well-being wrapped into one… it was so foreign to him. Hell, receiving just one of them was foreign on its own. The sincere, determined grin that blossomed was inevitable.
"Thank you, Sasuke," Naruto said, and anything else that could've been conveyed went unsaid but was still received by his equally emotionally inept friend. Turning around, he was met by Sakura standing in the doorway with a warm smile and open arms.
"Kick his ass, Naruto," she said, wrapping him in a hug before stepping away to allow him to head into battle.
Naruto set off into the darkness of the corridor with a grin and all the confidence of a freshly inaugurated Kage. He emerged from the tunnel to the crowd's excitement, even if it was more at the prospect of yet another battle than it was any particular endearment towards him specifically. It didn't really bother him much anymore. He wasn't going to change their opinions of him, and that was perfectly fine. He had his team; he didn't need the rest of them.
"Finally," Gaara practically salivated with a wicked grin as Naruto approached. "I'll find out exactly why Mother is so afraid of you. I'll see for myself just what kind of monster you possess that has her so fearful, and then I'll kill it and you, making my existence undeniable once and for all!"
The twisted, insane cackle that followed was harrowing, unnerving both Naruto and Genma to no end. Shaking it off, Genma faced the crowd. "The last match of the first round of these Chunin Selection Exam Finals!"
The unhinged mania in Gaara's eyes met the stony resolve in Naruto's for a battle of wills, but no matter how hard Gaara's murderous intent tried to overwhelm Naruto, it found an unwavering wall held together by brick, mortar, spite, and ramen.
Then, memories from a shadow clone dispelling entered his mind, shocking him still. Rather than one of the clones from the library, it was one from the swarm he sent to the clan districts. A few had tracked down the Senju Compound and made it inside, and boy did they find some things…
Genma's call of, "Begin!" faintly registered in his brain, but his mind was wholly elsewhere. The spectators who knew Naruto were growing a bit concerned at his stillness in the face of Gaara's sand pouring out of the gourd, and that concern rose when Naruto's expression progressively darkened into something uncharacteristically acrimonious. His team didn't miss the momentary glance he sent the Kage booth's way, and neither did the two men sitting in the booth.
Gaara refused to wait any longer, though, and some of the sand that was pooling around him fired at Naruto like a missile. Naruto vanished from his spot in a show of speed that surprised much of the crowd, spawning five shadow clones in his wake that each zoomed at Gaara with the same level of speed. More sand coalesced around Gaara like a shield in preparation for their charge, and out of the wall came a sand clone that sent a deadly wave at the incoming attackers. However, a surprise flurry of shuriken from the original captured the sand's focus, forcing it to intercept and trap the offending tools, and that was its undoing, as one of the shadow clones drove a fist straight through the sand clone's head, momentarily disrupting it.
The sand quickly recovered and latched onto the clone's arm, but the other clones were already on the attack, zooming past the edges of the shield to jump their target. Gaara was having none of it, shooting off some of the sand forming the armor on his skin into spikes that impaled two of the shadow clones but weren't fast enough to get the other two. The two remaining clones leaped above Gaara and fired a Great Breakthrough and two kunai at him, respectively, all of which Gaara blocked with his sand. Unfortunately for him, he didn't notice the explosive tags tied to them until they detonated, disrupting his sand shield even more. To cap it off, surprise movement in his periphery brought his gaze to the fist that damn near teleported beside him, slamming into his cheek and sending him tumbling away in a fashion so much like his battle with Lee.
Gaara and his cracked face would NOT have that, and he planned on capturing and crushing Naruto's limbs the moment he got back to his feet. The problem with that, however, was Naruto didn't give him the chance to recover, as the moment he righted himself, Naruto had already sped past his sand defenses and plowed his fist into Gaara's gut. To make matters worse for Gaara, Naruto followed up with a brutal series of punches that smashed through the sand armor coating him like a hammer, pummeling him higher and higher into the air with each punch until Naruto kicked him in the chin so hard that the sand covering it practically exploded during his new, skyward journey.
Naruto wasn't even close to finished, though. Refusing to allow Gaara's sand to catch up and rescue him, a shadow clone spawned and immediately latched onto the original's arm, allowing himself to be jettisoned into the sky on a collision course with Gaara. Gaara didn't even know what hit him (it was the clone's head) when the two finally collided, the clone finished the assault with a devastating hammer fist to Gaara's face right as the sand reached them, absconding its master and obliterating the clone.
While the crowd was predictably electric at more bloodsport, Sasuke and Sakura watched the fight with palpable discomfort. It wasn't that they feared for Naruto's safety; quite the opposite, actually, especially with how the battle was playing out thus far. What unsettled them was the permanent scowl on Naruto's face and the way he was going about the fight.
"He's not even feeling Gaara out with his clones," Sakura said with concern. "He's just pounding him."
"Something got to him before the match started," Sasuke remarked, keeping his gaze locked on his teammate. "You saw his expression just then. It was like he got news or a mental alert or something. Whatever it was must've pissed him off something fierce."
Near them, Shino did his best not to eavesdrop on a team discussion, but proximity was literally making that impossible, and the question of what could've changed Naruto's demeanor so drastically was an intriguing one. On the other side of the booth, though, Kankuro's eyes had long since fallen out of his skull due to excessive bulging. Gaara getting manhandled was a sight he never, ever expected to see.
Naruto's glare pierced through Gaara angrily writhing in a bed of sand. In the back of his mind, he knew that it really wasn't fair that he was using the match to vent his anger, with Gaara just happening to be the one on the other end, but he couldn't bring himself to care. It was like every time he was sort of coming to grips with an uncomfortable truth about Konoha, another one stormed into the picture and created an even bigger mess of his already precarious view of his life. He wanted to chalk it up to confirmation bias stemming from Orochimaru shoving a kunai through his soul in the Forest of Death, but he couldn't include the first twelve years of his life with that…
"Do you even know what confirmation bias is?"
'Not the damn time, Kyubi!'
A potent burst of malice began emanating from Gaara as he climbed back to his feet. His twisted expression was a mix of fury and unhinged excitement.
"You… you're even faster than he was…" Gaara gravelly seethed preceding a dry, evil chuckle. "Yes… Yes! Show me your power, Uzumaki! Show me how much darkness you possess so I can relish grinding you to a pulp!"
His declaration was so steeped in madness that it almost felt like the words themselves were pouring with the Ichibi's chakra. A sudden pulse from the cursed seal nearly made Naruto buckle, and his hand latched onto the spot beneath his hoodie with a grimace.
"Oh no…" Naruto whispered.
"The mark is reacting to your anger, as is my chakra, and that combination alongside the Ichibi's presence is stirring that monstrosity. You need to end this quickly."
"Yeah, I know," Naruto replied through gritted teeth. "Can you do your best to suppress it?"
"I'll try."
"All I ask," Naruto lowly muttered, his sapphire eyes bleeding into red with slit pupils as the Kyubi's chakra went to work keeping the Jubi from making a play while Naruto was distracted. A faint, fiery cloak of crimson developed around him, putting those in the know amongst the audience slightly on edge.
Gaara, on the other hand, just beamed with even more insanity. "Finally! Make me feel alive!"
Almost as if to punctuate that, an even larger wave of sand shot at Naruto, and yet again did he vanish out of sight, only to reappear striding along the sand straight toward Gaara. Gaara grinned and twitched his finger, causing a spike to emerge right in Naruto's path, but all it stabbed through was air as Naruto sped on his way. He reached Gaara in no time with another haymaker to hopefully knock him out and put an end to this, but his fist slammed into a quickly emerging sand wall, trapping it for the moment. An annoyed growl escaped him before he tore his arm free of the sand and backhanded Gaara with a mighty spin.
As Gaara was batted away from the scene like a rock skipped along a pond, the remaining sand attempted to swallow up Naruto and crush him, but he was once again too fast for it to catch, leaping into the air and getting a bird's eye view of his unfortunate opponent. He spawned another gang of shadow clones, and the present chakra boost from his tenant resulted in an army of over a hundred to show up when he really just meant for around forty or so.
Oh well. Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The clones leaped into action and converged on Gaara with a thunderous war cry. Gaara did the best he could to fend them off, but while the sand was able to catch and pop a few, most were more than capable of getting past his ultimate defense and pummeling him into the ground. The almost hilarious sounds of flesh pounding flesh and the chorus of, "UZUMAKI BARRAGE!" were followed by an utterly furious scream from Gaara that preceded a violent Sand Tsunami. This jutsu managed to catch all of the clones, and had Naruto not rocketed into the air with a mildly overpowered Gale Palm, he might have been caught up in the Giant Sand Burial that followed.
With the clones dealt with, Gaara laid his disdainful gaze on Naruto gracefully landing back on the ground like an alley cat, and Naruto met his with equal distaste. However, the minute shifting of the sands underfoot alerted him just in time to evade the giant hands that emerged from below, letting him create a little more space while dodging the offending appendages. He planted his feet and blasted a Kyubi-boosted Great Breakthrough that annihilated the sand hands and crashed into Gaara like a freight train, sweeping him off his feet until another bed of sand emerged to catch him.
It wasn't quite up to par with the blast Orochimaru unleashed on them, but he still had much to learn, so he didn't sweat it and flew through a sequence that had already been seen at least twice that day. However, rather than the perfect orb that came from years of practice in Sasuke's case or fine-tuned control in Sakura's, Naruto's version of the Fireball Jutsu was more of a shapeless yet powerful stream of flames that shot toward Gaara like a bat out of hell. He wasn't terribly good at the jutsu, simply learning it just to prove to Sasuke that he could, but it was more than enough to turn Gaara into a glass sculpture once it hit, especially with it being further empowered by the Kyubi's influence.
Gaara must have had a similar train of thought, as the sand closed around him in a dome before the jutsu could hit, igniting the immediate area in another fiery light show that awed the crowd.
On the sidelines, Genma was inwardly concerned that each of Kakashi's genin seemed to really enjoy setting things on fire.
Once the flames died down, the orb that contained Gaara remained, and it was mostly untouched. Naruto regarded it curiously, idly noticing sand coalesce in the air above it into an eye that stared back at him.
'Uh, any idea what he's doing?'
"It smells like bitch in there. He's bringing out that damn tanuki."
Naruto's eyes widened, and then his cursed seal throbbed once again before the cloak around him intensified. "Yeah, can't have that."
Placing his fingers in a cross, a few shadow clones popped into existence in front of him, and then they set off toward the orb to disrupt whatever dastardly machinations Gaara had planned that would inadvertently spur the Jubi into action-
"Annnnd they were impaled," Naruto observed, shuddering at the memories of being ruthlessly skewered in first-person.
"Womp womp."
Naruto hummed in consideration of how to proceed. There had to have been something he learned over the month that could penetrate the cocoon…
His mind flickered back to Sakura's Senbon Inferno colliding with Temari's wind jutsu and igniting a raging wildfire. Then, it fell on Sasuke colliding Chidori with the Rotation and carving straight through it…
'Yeah, that'll work just fine,' he internally mused with a devilish smirk. A shadow clone appeared beside him as he held out his palm and concentrated, and the clone went to work assisting with shaping the chakra he was molding in his palm into the loud, spinning orb that soon developed. He paid no mind to the collective gasps and murmuring in the audience, nor did he heed the influence of the Kyubi's chakra on the Rasengan. His only focus was the cocoon and Gaara inside of it.
Finally, he shot toward the cocoon with the Vermillion Rasengan in one hand and the clone's arm in the other. As he neared the cocoon, he tossed the valiant sacrifice into the belly of the beast, calling out the spikes from the cocoon and giving Naruto a window and path to hit the shell unobstructed. Weaving through wisps of smoke and sandy death, Naruto slammed the Rasengan into the sand and ground away at the cocoon, sending sand flying every which way. The Rasengan carved through the ultimate defense like a common balsa tree on the southern coast before Naruto eventually broke right through and hit something.
Or rather, he hit someone.
There was no time to scream before everything blew. A massive hole was blasted out of the back of the cocoon, launching Gaara out of his hidey-hole and sending him skidding along the ground before coming to a rest near the wall, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
His gaze was wide and unfocused. His chest was red raw. His sand armor had all but crumbled around him, stained red with the blood spattered across his body.
Blood.
His blood.
Sparks of life returned to his eyes as he labored his head to look at the mess that was his abdomen amidst the dead silence within the stadium. His breath hitched at the sight of the carmine blanket he was wrapped in; blood was still trickling out of him, and portions of his damaged ribcage were visible. That was to say nothing of the cuts, scrapes, and burns littering the rest of his body, all of which simply added to the blood trail.
The scream that tore itself from Gaara's throat echoed through the stadium and would remain in the nightmares of so many in attendance for years to come.
Then, it all became far too much for Gaara's poor little heart, and he fainted.
Breathless silence was all that remained. Not a peep could be heard from one end of Konoha to the other. Naruto kept his eyes locked on Gaara's unmoving form, but he allowed himself to sigh knowing that he had finally ended the battle.
That was until a mountain of ghastly chakra erupted from Gaara's body, and a whole heap of surrounding sand twisted and covered him like a second, third, fourth, and even fifth skin. A monstrosity straight out of a nomad's nightmares emerged from Gaara's upper body, the makings of a sandy tanuki coming to life where a human once existed.
Meanwhile, Naruto's cursed seal damn near ignited with activity, forcing itself on him with the Jubi violently fighting against its ever-weakening restraints. Naruto collapsed to his knees and screamed in agony as the thorny spiral that marred him cascaded over his skin. If that wasn't bad enough, despite the Kyubi's chakra exploding out of him with a full one-tailed cloak developing, the markings burned bright orange and trucked on. One tail became two, then two became three, but the cursed seal would not be halted so easily anymore, and the frighteningly eldritch, alien roar of the Jubi chilled Naruto and the Kyubi to the bone as they fought their hardest against what unfortunately felt like an inevitability.
The last thing most in attendance saw before feathers fell from the sky was the horrific sight of Naruto Uzumaki succumbing to a grey, scaly exterior while a monstrous rat made of the most awful sand ballooned to ridiculous heights across from him. There was no bliss in unconsciousness for them, only the perpetual dread of a world-ending scourge that patiently chose its moment to come out and play.
On the other side, a grating, maniacal cackle boomed from the Ichibi forming in the middle of the stadium. Not since the Kyubi had nearly flattened the village had the still-conscious shinobi seen a biju in the flesh so closely, and all of them hoped that day would never come again, but their prayers went unanswered as the lurid spectacle of the Sand Tanuki of legend placed itself on display for all to cower in fear of.
"I'm free!" he cackled. "I'm finally free! I'm-"
His celebration died on his sandy tongue when he looked down and locked eyes with Naruto, or rather, he locked eyes with the demon of his greatest nightmares rearing to burst within him. His yellow pupils shrank to pinpricks when the sight of the Jubi's blazing Rinne Sharigan filled his vision and the harbinger of planetary destruction roared in his face.
"Abso-fucking-lutely not!" Shukaku shouted, turning right around and hightailing it the fuck out of dodge.
Shukaku ran away, carelessly stomping a path through Konoha and flattening everything in his wake as he got as far away from his demise as he possibly could, heading straight for the desert where he knew he would at least have an advantage over nearly anything that stumbled across him. Nothing was able to stop him. Nothing even slowed him down. Anything and anyone that was misfortunate enough to be in his path was reduced to rubble.
All the while, Naruto just barely hung on to control over his body, fighting tooth and nail to keep himself from charging after the fleeing monster and s̵̠͒w̵͇̓a̵͛ͅl̴̘̈ḻ̸̏o̸̩̚ẅ̶͖́i̵͖͋ń̵̢g̷̟̃ ̷̖̈́h̷͈́ĭ̸̹m̷̥͝ ̷̮̅w̵͍̅h̵̯͝ö̷͔l̶̆͜e̶̺͂-
Just then, Sasuke and Sakura were at his side, both with their cursed seals on full display and expressions pouring with concern. Somehow, either Naruto was able to communicate to them through grunts and coughs that they needed to knock him out, or his teammates just went with the first thing that came to mind, as the sole of Sasuke's boot and Sakura's blackened fist were the last two things Naruto saw before everything went black.
So at the beginning of April, I told myself that since I somehow posted around 40K words in March like a fucking psychopath, I'd shoot for 50K by the end of the month.
...I got to a grand total of 13K, and it was all one chapter. So, yeah, not 50K, but damnit 13K is more than a lot of stories can claim to have updated in a year's span, so I'll take it. And fuck it, I'll shoot for 60K by the end of May. Nobody can fucking stop me.
In other news, I feel it's safe to say that I've officially beaten any and all "canon merchant" allegations I've accrued over the course of my time writing fanfic, regardless of the fandom.
say his name and he appears, I believe in Joe Hendry, clap clap
Thanks for reading.