Chapter 9: The Chunin Exams

The final stage of the chunin exams was finally here. Even with all of the training I've done, I couldn't help but feel slightly nervous. Today was the day that the village was going to be invaded. I stood in front of my broken bed which had a variety of weapons and tools neatly placed on it. Kunai, shuriken, explosive tags, soldier pills, everything that might be useful today.

Suna and Oto were going to attack Konoha, Orochimaru was going to attack the Sandaime and it was going to end with his arms sealed and the third Hokage dead. There was an upside though, I had already dealt with Gaara and made him my friend, so I'm pretty confident that I won't have to deal with Shukaku.

Even still, I felt like I hadn't done enough. Sure I had trained as hard as I could, but had I trained as smart as I could. At the beginning of this month, I set out to learn all the elements and with Kurama's help, I succeeded in doing that, but I kept feeling like I should have just focused on mastering one or two elements.

"Everything will be fine, or have you forgotten that even without all of your training, I am still here and will help if you need it."

I took a breath and calmed myself down. "You're right… It's just… There's going to be a lot of fighting today."

"And?"

"Everyone I've fought so far, with the exception of Gaara, has been a genin. Today it's likely I'll be helping fight an army of chunin and Jonin. I know that I'll survive, especially with your help, but… I can't help but feel tense. I'm literally just waiting for the real fight to start."

"Then just use more of my chakra, with you entering the initial state for most of a month, your body should be able to enter a tailed state... What was it that you called it, the version 1 cloak?"

"That sounds about right," I replied, feeling a bit more confident. The version 1 cloak, while not the most powerful thing for a Jinchuriki, was still able to protect an entire army from the Juubi's Tenpenchii. There was quite literally no one in Suna or Oto that could be able to compare to that. "Thanks Kurama."

"Hm," Kurama grunted. "I don't see why you were so tense about this. If you remember correctly, the other Naruto survived the Tenpenchii without a chakra cloak."

"Wait, didn't he just use that other golden cloak to protect himself?"

"No. He depleted all of his chakra to protect the Shinobi alliance. He took the full blast of the Tenpenchii and survived, wounded yes, but alive."

That…was true, now that I thought about it. Naruto had some crazy durability, even without Kurama's chakra. Even when he fought Gaara, he was tanking direct attack that were shredding trees. I looked down at my hands and clenched them into fists. That durability applied to me as well.

Looking at the various tools and weapons I had on my bed, I began packing them in their correct pouches. Today was going to be a long day. There was going to be a lot of fighting, hell, there was going to be an invasion, but I felt confident. I wasn't just going to survive today, I was going to thrive. All the training from this last month… I'm going to prove to myself that it wasn't for nothing.

"Naruto," A monotone voice greeted me.

"Hm?" I hummed, turning to see Gaara."Oh, hey, long time no see."

The final stage of the chunin exams had finally begun… well, almost. Genma, the new proctor for the finals was currently explaining what was expected of us, ultimately it all boiled down to a repeat of what Hayate said. We were allowed to do anything to beat our opponent, but once the proctor called the match, it was over and we had to stop.

"Yes," Gaara nodded. "It has been a few days since we last saw each other. After finding out that I had been in a fight, I wasn't permitted to leave our hotel."

That made sense. If I was in charge of Gaara and found out he almost killed another villages genin unprovoked, I would also want to make sure that he was somewhere I could keep an eye on him.

"That sucks… at least you're free to move around today."

"Naruto, shut up," Ino whispered harshly. "Do you want to get us all in trouble?!"

"Hey, I'm just trying to make small talk here," I replied. "Besides, we've already heard this speech in the preliminaries."

"That doesn't matter," Ino hissed. "We-"

"Everyone other than Aburame Shino and Temari, leave the field," Genma announced.

"Geez Ino, do you see what all your talking's got us? He's kicking us off the field because of you," I said, keeping a smile off my face, hoping that she would take the bait.

"What?!" Ino squawked.

Watching Ino rush off to apologize to the proctor, I couldn't hide my chuckle.

"Is she your friend too?" Gaara asked as we walked towards the stairway.

"Not really," I hummed. "Well… not yet anyway. We haven't really had the chance to have a proper conversation."

"So you can become friends with people later even if you're currently on bad terms with them?"

Seeing the perplexed look on Gaara's face, I couldn't help but sigh. Suna and more importantly, their Kage, Gaara's father had done a great job of mind fucking him. But despite their best efforts, there was still a spark of something in Gaara that refused to give up, a willingness to learn how to live a happier life.

"Yeah, even enemies can become friends," I said, thinking of Madara and Hashirama. I really didn't know where to begin with helping Gaara. "But there's a bit of a complexity to it. Some people will become friends with a person just to use them."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"You will… eventually. For now, all you need is to make more bonds with people. Why don't you try connecting with your siblings?"

"That won't work," Gaara shook his head. "My brother and sister… they're terrified of me."

"Then you're just going to have to show them that you're not something that they need to be afraid of," I replied. Arriving at the balcony that overlooked the field, I knocked Gaara with my arm. "Your brother's just over there, why don't you try talking to him?" I gestured towards Kankuro who seemed to be watching us cautiously.

Looking at Kankuro, Gaara nodded. "Very well." And he was off.

Watching Gaara walk up to his brother who began to pale and shrunk back. I couldn't help but wince. It was going to take some time before they were on good terms.

"Naruto," A feminine voice growled in anger.

Turning around I was greet to the sight of Ino, panting lightly.

"Ino," I grinned. "How's it going? What took you so long, I saw you were talking with the proctor."

"You… I'm going to beat the crap out of you," She growled, clicking her knuckles.

"Well we are going to be fighting next round," I commented. "But in the mean time, let's watch Shino's match."

"What?" Ino looked to the field, before growling, "This isn't over."

I grinned at that. From my memories of her, Ino and I didn't really get along… not that we really interacted much. We mostly clashed when I was trying to compete with Sasuke and even then, Ino was just part of a group of fan girls that were reacting to me, I didn't really have any hate or anger for her, but that didn't mean I couldn't have fun messing with her.

"Begin," Hayate called out, lazily stepping out of the way of the two genin.

Instantly, Shino burst forward, his fist cocked back to throw a punch at Temari.

Temari's eyes narrowed, grabbing her fan, she swung it down rapidly on Shino's head, but instead of striking flesh and bone, the fan sunk into Shino's head, a swarm of bugs leaking out, holding the fan in place as a second Shino appeared behind her.

"please," Temari smirked. Snapping the fan open, she swung it in a circular motion, roughly blasting Shino into the trees and disintegrating his Kikaichu clone. "Is that all you've got bug boy?"

Shino said nothing, what little of his face gave nothing away, he was the picture perfect example of stoicism. Silently he moved to hide in the trees.

"Huh," Temari grunted, seeing a Kunai coming from Shino's predictable hiding spot, she tilted her head out of the way and smirked. "Oh, I see. That actually was everything you had. Give up now bug boy and you won't get hurt."

Shino peaked his head out long enough to accurately launch a few dozen kunai and Shuriken at Temari.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Clicking her fan open all the way, she swung it heavily, her hair fluttering wildly as a massive blast of wind deflected all of Shino's weapons and even threatened to blast him out of the foliage.

"GIVE U-" Temari roared into the wind, but was thrown off when a large mass of Kikaichu slammed into her back, coating her body. "WHAT," She shrieked, swinging her fan around wildly as she attempted to blast them off.

It was to no avail, the bugs latched on tightly as they began draining her chakra. Desperately, Temari dropped her fan and tried to violently brush them off, but every time she succeeded, they just latched onto her again. Rolling around in a last attempt to get them off, she froze when she felt a kunai pressed up against her neck.

"Forfeit. Why? Because you will pass out in less than a minute if I don't recall my Kikaichu," Shino said stoic manner.

Growling, Temari wanted to continue fighting, but she realized that Shino was right. She was rapidly running out of chakra. "I… I forfeit."

Walking forward, Genma nodded. "Through Temari's forfeit, Aburame Shino is the winner," He announced.

With that said, the bugs dispersed, flying off of Temari and swarming back into Shino's clothes.

The crowd was indecisive on how to react. Some cheered and clapped, yes, but a large variety, specifically the civilians were creeped out by the Kikaichu.

"How… How did you do it?" She asked, getting up off the floor.

"Your jutsu… when you blast wind at someone, you also pull wind from behind you, you are at the epicenter of this wind. I left my Kikaichu behind you and goaded you into using your jutsu on me. They rode the wind behind you and latched onto you," Shino explained clinically.

"That… when did you learn how my jutsu works?"

"In the preliminaries when you fought Tenten," Shino explained. "The Hokage said it himself. We were to use this month learning new Jutsu and planning for our match. I had a month to figure out how to counter you, it seems you didn't use yours wisely."

"Huh, damn," I muttered. I hadn't been expecting the match to go that way, honestly, I thought that Temari was going to be the winner. "Shino really did his homework. You ready for our match, Ino?"

"Of course," Ino puffed up. "You're going down."

"Alright," I nodded, not really paying her any attention as I walked down the stairs. "Just a word of warning, don't use your mind transfer jutsu on me, it won't end well for you."

Ino gave me a curious glare. "And why shouldn't I?"

"Let's just say that I've got a great mental defence," I chuckled, patting my stomach.

"That's your stomach, dumbass," Ino snapped.

It didn't take us that long to get to the field, on the way down the stairs, we did pass Shino and Temari, but other than that, nothing noteworthy happened. Soon we found ourselves standing opposite each other.

"Begin," Hayate lazily announced.

Immediately, Ino flashed through several hand signs and held her hands together in a familiar circular form.

It seemed that despite my warning, Ino was intent on using her mind transfer jutsu. My body, no longer being weighed down my Jiraiya's earth style technique felt light. Moving towards her at a faster rate than Rock Lee without his leg weights, I forced her hands apart, my leg snaking behind hers, all it took was a push on her shoulder to knock her to the ground, my fist stopped directly in front of her face.

"Sorry Ino, but there is quite literally nothing you can do right now that would be able to beat me," I apologized. "I was intending on letting you show off what you've learned this past month, but I can't let you use that Jutsu on me… You wouldn't like what you find."

"W-w-what?" Ino stuttered, her mind still catching up with what just happened.

"Surrender," I said calmly.

"No," Ino gritted out. Attempting to use her Jutsu, I grabbed one of her hands, stopping her from being able to form the circular seal.

"One last chance, surrender or I'll knock you out," I warned her.

Ino glared up at me, before smirking. "You know, Naruto. When I put my hands together like that, It's not actually a seal used to transfer my mind, it's actually to aim it," Ino gloated. "Shintenshin no jutsu."

I blinked at that. 'Hey Kurama, it looks like we're getting a visitor, do me a favor and don't kill her.'

The world turned to black as I found myself dragged into my mindscape.

"Ugh, what is this," Ino moaned, looking at the water on her feet.

"You know, I'm not totally sure about that either," I replied, watching her jump. "I'm hoping it's chakra or just some weird manifestation of my mind, but on the other hand it might be 13 years of pee."

"N-Naruto?! You're not supposed to be in here."

"Actually, you'll find that it's you who's not supposed to be here," I responded, looking around, I spotted Kurama a few steps behind Ino. "I told you not to use that jutsu on me."

"Like I would listen to you," Ino snapped. "I don't know what's going on with you or your weird mind, but that doesn't matter. I'm going to control your body and make you forfeit just like I did with Sakura."

"Really," Kurama's voice boomed. Ino froze up in fear as Kurama's claws encircled her. "You think that you could control Naruto's body, myself included. Such arrogance."

Turning around, Ino was greeted to a glowing red eye, twice as tall as herself. "N-N-Naru-Naruto, h-he-help," She stuttered, completely frozen in fear.

"Alright," I sighed, feeling a little bad for her. Walking towards Ino, I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "That's enough."

"Is it?" Kurama asked, his claws coming closer to us. "This little brat decided to invade your mind, maybe I should show her why that's a bad idea."

Ino turned and latched onto me, holding me tight enough to cause pain, her head tucked into my chest as she shivered in fear. "P-pl-please. I don't want to die."

"You're not going to die," I said gently, before turning towards Kurama. "Yes, it is enough. She's frightened half to death. It's not like she intended to do anything actually harmful to us, she was just trying to win her round in the chunin exams."

"Fine," Kurama grunted, moving away from us. "But know this, girl. The next time you enter Naruto's mind without permission, I won't be so… accommodating."

Watching Kurama settle down in a dimmer area, I turned my attention back to the shivering blonde. "Hey, you can let go, he's gone now."

"N-no," Ino shook her head.

"The sooner you let go, the sooner you can cancel your jutsu and get out of here," I reasoned.

"I-if I let go of you, then i-it's going to grab me," Ino argued, clutching tighter.

"If you don't let go of him now and get out of here, then I really will grab you," Kurama's voice resounded.

Ino let out a quick scream, but didn't do anything else, other than tighten her grip.

"DUDE?!" I yelled at Kurama, before turning to Ino. "What… what if I hold onto you and you let go and cancel your jutsu."

Ino nodded inaudibly. Wrapping my arms around her, I felt Ino release me from her surprisingly tight grip, her body shook with fear as she brought her hands together and then, disappeared entirely.

Letting out a relieved sigh, I turned my attention to Kurama. "What the hell was with all that?"

"I don't like uninvited guests," Kurama replied. "Especially ones that can read your mind… or have you forgotten that you have knowledge that can either save or damn this world?"

He was right… Regardless of Ino's age or skill level, anyone that enters my mind without my permission is a potential risk to the safety of the world, but I still felt like that could have been handled better. "Thanks for the assist, but maybe next time you could handle it a little more gently… unless it's someone from the Akatsuki, then go nuts."

Kurama watched me intently, before nodding. "Don't you have a match to win?"

"Right," I nodded and faded from the seal.

Appearing back in the chunin exams arena, I immediately took note of my surroundings. It appeared that even though I spent a good few minutes with Ino and Kurama, only seconds had passed. Genma was standing at the side watching us.

Looking down at Ino, her eyes were glazed over, before they sharpened and she began to look around rapidly, breathing franticly, she was having a panic attack.

"Crap," I muttered, before kneeling next to her. "Ino, look at me," I said, grabbing her shoulders. "Take slow deep breaths." Breathing deeply, I was glad to see Ino was copying me.

"What happened?" Genma asked, staring down at the two of us.

"Ino used her mind swap jutsu on me and came face to face with the Kyuubi," I explained, not taking my eyes off her. "She wasn't hurt, but she was scared by it."

Genma nodded. "As Yamanaka Ino is unable to continue, Uzumaki Naruto is the victor. Would medics please come to collect Yamanaka Ino," Genma announced.

Again, there weren't many cheers. The match hadn't really been anything amazing, from the audiences' point of view, I rushed Ino, we stared at each other for a few seconds and then the match was over.

I left the arena, acknowledging Gaara as I passed him in the stairwell. The next round… it was one that I was really interested in. Originally, the starting point for the invasion was in Gaara's first round when he fought Sasuke, if the invasion started early, I needed to be ready.

"Naruto," Sakura called, waving me over.

"Hey, what took you so long?" I asked, walking over.

"It took a while to get everyone seated in the stadium," Sakura huffed. "By the time I got here, you already started your match… by the way, what happened there, you and Ino were just staring at each other for a while."

"Ah," I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. "About that, she tried possessing me and came face to face with the Kyuubi," I explained, uncaring if others overheard me. My status as Kurama's Jinchuriki was the worst kept secret of Konoha, all the adults, civilians and Shinobi alike already knew about it… If the other nations didn't know about me, I would be shocked.

"She what?!" Sakura paled. "Is… is she alright?"

"Yeah, she was just having a panic attack, she wasn't hurt or anything. He… wasn't exactly happy that someone tried to possess me," I explained.

"M-maybe I should go and see if she's okay now."

"You could probably do that, I'll stay here and watch the matches."

Turning to leave, Sakura paused for a moment. "Oh… you haven't heard anything from Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei, right?"

"No... Knowing them, they're probably late," I replied.

"Oh… okay," Sakura left, seeming a little downtrodden.

I shook my head and returned to the combatants' booth, I had spent a good amount of time with Sakura this month and it was abundantly clear that she had a massive crush on Sasuke.

Looking around the booth, everything seemed calm, with the exception of two Suna Shinobi staring down at the field nervously. Walking over, I clasped my hands over their shoulders and leaned in between them.

"Yo," I grinned impishly. "Worried about Gaara?"

"Get off me, brat," Kankuro growled, shrugging my hand off along with Temari.

"Go bother someone else," Temari grunted.

"It's no wonder Gaara struggles to connect with people, what with you two being his siblings and all," I said. "Don't worry by the way, I've taken it on myself to help fix all the shit your village did to him."

The sand duo paled at that.

"What are you talking about?" Temari asked nervously.

"Cut the bullshit, please," I replied simply. "I've seen how you look at him and can guess how he's been treated by how he acts. Gaara's a Jinchuriki who has been abused by his village in the hopes that he would become a living weapon."

"How do you Kno-" Kankuro began.

"It doesn't matter," I cut him off. "What really matters right now is how you two treat him going forward from today. Gaara's… not a bad person."

"If you had seen what he's done," Kankuro argued.

"I didn't say he's not done bad things, I'm saying he's not a bad person. At most, he's misguided. Gaara kills and acts the way he does because it's all he has known, because that's how he was raised. He's been alone and hurting most of his life," I explained, taking a breath. "You two… you care about your brother, right?"

"Yes," Temari said slowly while Kankuro nodded.

"Good," I replied, "Because I'm going to ask you two to do something you've never done before. Show Gaara that you care for him, be there for him, pull him out of his loneliness and help him become something better than just a living weapon. Think you two can do that?"

At their nods, I smiled. I didn't really like getting involved in this, but I had altered things to the point where I felt it was necessary. Without me needing to beat the crap out of Gaara, he wouldn't have a moment of vulnerability with his siblings, which means they might continue to avoid him. Gaara wasn't a bad guy, he was just a product of his upbringing.

Gaara stood opposite his opponent, Hyuga Neji, passively watching him as he waited for the match to start. When the match finally began, he still remained passive, his arms sitting across his chest as Neji blurred towards him.

Neji moved gracefully. When a wall of sand sprouted in front of him, he sidestepped at a rate faster than Lee. Another sand wall and another sidestep. Neji brought his hand up, aiming a palm strike at Gaara's head, for a moment it seemed he would be successful, but sand rushed out, taking the blow for Gaara.

"You won't be able to beat me, you should forfeit," Gaara said monotonously. The sand that Neji sidestepped came up from behind him while Gaara brought more in front, keeping Neji from being able to escape.

"Hm, you're the one that should forfeit," Neji smirked as his Byakugan activated. The sand had almost engulfed him, before he began to move, spinning as a large dome of chakra manifested around him, grinding away and dispersing Gaara's sand.

Several seconds passed by as Gaara's sand and Neji's Kaiten strained against each other. At first it seemed that they were at a complete stalemate, but as time carried on, it became obvious who was winning. Neji began to slow down, his Kaiten unable to fight off the never ending stream of sand Gaara kept sending his way.

Stopping his spin entirely, Neji jumped out of the way of the sand, flipping and dodging as he gained distance from Gaara.

"I'll admit, you're strong, but you won't beat me, I've seen through your tricks," Neji boasted.

Gaara stared dispassionately at Neji, before sending several more waves of sand for him to dodge. The fight continued in much the same way. Neji was fast and could dodge the sand, but couldn't get near Gaara while Gaara couldn't seem to catch Neji.

Panting lightly, Neji turned his gaze to an unfazed Gaara. It was a battle of attrition and Neji was definitely losing. The only way for Neji to win now was by taking a risk.

Rushing towards Gaara, there was substantially more sand for Neji to duck and weave through, there were several close calls where the sand hardened into spikes that left scratches on his body, but he managed to pull it off.

Appearing in front of Gaara, Neji smirked and took a low stance. "You are within my range of divinations."

Gaara's sand sprung up to defend him, blocking the first two and four palms, but by eight , Neji was moving so fast, that only half the palm strikes were blocked. Sixteen full palm strikes hit Gaara and he began to panic, his sand armor hadn't been able to protect him from Neji's Juken.

Neji was halfway through 32 strikes when he saw it. A potent, heavy chakra well up within Gaara, reopening his tenketsu. Aiming to finish the fight, Neji cursed when sand rushed towards Gaara faster than before, wrapping around him like an egg and trapping his arms inside.

"What is this," Neji grunted as he tried to pull his arms out. A second passed and then there was a sickening cracking sound as the sand condensed on his arms.

All around the stadium, feathers began to fall.

Chapter numero 9

Not much to say on this one. The fights have all changed and the invasions kicked off a bit earlier than before due to a lack of Shikamaru fighting Temari and wasting time so the sun will extend his shadow. I had fun writing Shino's fight. It's a shame that he only got to fight Kankuro after the invasion had started.

Anyways, love everyone's reaction to this fic so far. I'm looking forward to what you all think of some of the later chapters.

As always, I'm 5 chapters ahead on the spooky P website, so that brings me up to chapter 14 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

Have a good day everyone.