Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Blood Naruto ❯ Volume 2, The Downfall of Konoha ( Chapter 2 )

I Do Not Own Naruto or Blood Rayne.

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In a dark labyrinth that would make the average shinobi piss there pants, one man sat on a throne as he looked over what seemed to be paperwork. You could tell he wasn't exactly happy about it as he was refraining his fingers from making the seals to destroy the stack of papers that never seemed to end. He knew running a technical village was difficult work, but never once did he imagine that it would be this hard. Seriously, he was hoping that anyone, anything would come up and disturb him at the moment as it would get him away from the plague in front of him.

Thankfully he didn't have to wait long as a knock was heard at the door. Gathering himself into his normal, cool, collect and evil like posture, Orochimaru beckoned the person at the door to come in. The door quickly slid open to reveal that no one was there, or so it seemed. The snake sannin sighed as he knew exactly who it was as he waited for the door to close before throwing a kunai at the invisible being. "Alright Jiraiya, now that you are here, can we go over this plan so that we know what is happening?"

The kunai was caught easily as the air shimmered around the said person and Jiraiya appeared and began to twirl around the kunai. "Just a moment. We have to wait for Mune-hime..." He couldn't finish his sentence as a fist connected to his face and he was slammed into the wall.

Orochimaru winced in pain as he heard a few dozen bones crack and was sure that a few brains cells were destroyed in the process. Not that he had any left, or at least he didn't think he did. Shaking that thought off, he looked over at Jiraiya's crumpled from. "Tsunade is already here as we've been waiting for you."

A muffled groan of agony that sounded like 'Why didn't you tell me?' was heard from were Jiraiya began to try and pick himself up. Orochimaru sighed as he wished Tsunade had aimed him at his paperwork, but he had no such luck as Jiraiya instantly jumped back up without a single scratch on him. No matter how many times he seen this, it continued to surprise him as no one should be able to take that kind of damage and get up. And it was also irritating as the damn pervert didn't tell him how he did it so he could replicate the feat.

As he sighed and tried to shake that thought off, Jiraiya walked over to where Tsunade and Orochimaru stood/sat before pulling out a scroll and laying it out on the desk. "Since we are all here now, let's get started. Orochimaru, these are the new blue prints to the fortified wall of Konoha that the council has made along with the guard shifts and positioning during the Chunin Exam Finals. As you can see, it is poorly defend as the council is too arrogant and believe no one will try to attack Konoha."

Orochimaru nodded in agreement he looked over at the scroll and saw that Jiraiya was telling the truth. It was horribly defend that even the weaker shinobi nations could catch Konoha by surprise and at least cripple them severely. He knew that the elders and council members were cocky, back stabbing sons of bitches, but this was pitiful for even them. Something was up and he wanted to know what. "Yes, it is very ill defended, but there has to be a reason for this."

Jiraiya nodded as he knew the reason very well as Tsunade spoke up. "It's because the majority of the Anbu are refusing to guard their home town until the council vanquishes it's right to power and elects a new Hokage, preferably Jiraiya or myself. But it seems that they are not giving in and now are even trying to arrest their own Anbu members. Not working very well as the Anbu is the special force unit."

Shaking his head hearing this, Orochimaru could only sigh as he interlocked his fingers and looked at both of his teammates. "So the internal strife is still going on then. That raises the question why would they be willing to hold a Chunin Exam if there village is in such turmoil. If they are trying to prove they are still strong, they are foolish as it will do nothing but weaken them even further and invite other nations to attack them to claim they defeated the 'invincible' Konoha." Sighing deeply at this, he shook his head before turning to Tsunade. "How is Kimimaro doing?"

"He's recovering at this moment with both Kabuto and Shizune looking over him. I've taken care of everything I could and it will be a month before he completely recovers. So you'll have to wait until then before you can possess and take over his body. I really have to wonder where you manage to pick up such talented kids with practically no morals. Is it just a gift or do you have to work at it?"

Growling at her, Orochimaru turned away and ignored her as he looked his eyes on Jiraiya. "So how many have you've gotten to join us so that we can regain Konoha's lost glory? And did Rayne agree to my proposition?"

"Well, other than the majority of the Anbu siding with us, I've only convinced a few that I knew that would join us. I would tell you their names, but it's best for them to remain anonymous for now. And of course Rayne agreed with it. They can use all the help they can get to locate and recover Beliar's scattered body before Akatsuki can. So they'll be here shortly, though don't go easy on them otherwise you just might lose a few limbs."

Orochimaru nodded at that a small smirk graced his lips. "That's good to hear. I guess you two better disappear before they get her otherwise Konoha might suspect something. Oh, and Tsunade, can you please send Jiraiya through this paperwork. I think he was peeping on you last night."

In an instant, Jiraiya flew through the paperwork and the wall as Tsunade chased after him intending to kill the pervert once and for all. Seeing all his paperwork was destroyed, Orochimaru laid his feet on his broken desk and laid back in his throne as he didn't have to worry about his only complaint for running this new village. Well that and the fact that he would have to fix the walls that Jiraiya punctured through later.

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"Itachi, why exactly are we coming all the way out here? I know Rayne told us that we have a very important deal to make here, but she didn't tell us what it is?" Yugito asked him as she looked around the dark forest, not liking it one bit. Of course it was better than the forest around the mansion as no Turned was going to pop up and try to eat them, but still, it was creepy.

Sighing in annoyance as he already knew what was going on but was told to keep it a secret from them, Itachi turned to Naruto, Yugito and Gaara. "As she said, this is an important deal so that we can locate more of Beliar's body parts. Now stop asking questions as I don't know any more than you do."

Naruto raised his eyebrow at this as he could smell something was off with Itachi's scent when he said that, but shrugged it off as he didn't know what it was. Shaking that off, he looked over at Gaara, who was walking besides him calm and collected. After his seal was fixed, Gaara began to change after a few beatings and words from Naruto. Sure it was gradual, but he changed. Even after Shukaku was sealed off from affecting his mentality, Gaara was still a blood thirsty, psychotic killer. Of course he still had that part to him; just he only showed it when he got pissed.

But once he realized that both Naruto and Yugito were once like him and shared similar lives, he slowly began to accept them and the others around. He didn't talk much, but that was to be expected as he was still anti-social. If he said more than five words in a sentence, something had to be going on or wrong. He also was loyal and in his and Yugito's case, extremely loyal to those he considered friends. Though something about Kyuubi and Nibi threw him off so he did his best to avoid them, though that was probably just his tanuki instinct or Shukaku, he wasn't sure which.

Taking his eyes off of Gaara, he turned to Yugito. She was still practically the same as she was when he rescued her three years ago, except she looked a year or two older as she was half a foot taller. But there was one big change that was underneath the cloak she was wearing. A fluffy blonde furred tail that she wrapped around her waist. When it first appeared, she completely freaked out as having cat ears were bad enough. In the end it took Rayne, Kyuubi, Gobi and himself to calm her down while Nibi laughed her ass off while Itachi looked amused at the event.

Of course they weren't the only ones to change. Over the two years, Naruto had physically grown taller, more muscular and oddly enough more flexible, but that was probably due to his vampiric heritage. He by no means was tall as he was only an inch taller than five foot and his muscles weren't rippling as they were compact and hardened making it hard to tell that he even had muscles if you didn't look at him for a few moments. His hair had grown out like that of his father's except a hell of a lot more spikier and with red streaks along with blue streaks that he dyed in for remembrance of his mother.

He was still sore about her passing and Rayne from hiding it from him, but he no longer held it against her. He just wished that there was some way to go back and changed what happened so that he could have both of his mothers around. Shaking that thought off, there was a few other visible changes about him. On the middle of his forehead, there was a blue star.

It was a seal, a seal that was made by both Jiraiya and himself to seal away his dark side, but also to allow him some freedoms to increase Naruto's strength in dire situations as Dark himself had said that Naruto's death meant his own and would prevent that at all costs. Though it was hell getting him trapped into the seal as his mind allowed many escape paths that kept him from being sealed away.

Shaking that thought off, he looked around at the sun and rolled his eyes. He had finally gotten use to the damn thing so he no longer needed a cloak when he went outside during the day. This alone increased his tan so he wasn't as pale as he was before, but was still far from being called normal. And his final change was his eyes were crystal blue.

Over the last two years, he found out he could change his eye color at will. It didn't have any real benefits other than making him harder to identify, but it was still cool that he cool change it to his Inu red and emerald, his father's electric blues, his mother's icy blues, Rayne's emeralds and finally Kyuubi's crimson eyes. Of course he normally went with the blues for tribute for his birth father and mother.

Sniffing the air, he turned around and started to walk in another direction, making Itachi, Gaara and Yugito stare at him in confusion. Sighing lightly, he shook his head at them. "It's over here as there is a large scent of human's in this direction. You continue to head over there you'll find yourself entering the Land of Fire."

Itachi blinked for a few seconds before using his nose and sighed out loud. He hated when Naruto was right and when he forgot that his nose was highly developed. Shaking his head, he followed Naruto as he led them to what seemed to be an underground entrance shaped like a temple door. Taking a look at the insignia on the door, Itachi nodded as this was the right place and did what he always did when he was in a hurry. He kicked the door down.

The two former jinchuuriki sighed in annoyance at him while Gaara mentally did the same while guards began to swarm onto the area. The first there happened to be a red haired girl around Yugito's age and what seemed to be three badly beaten up gennins. "What the fuck?! Who the hell are you fuckheads?! Never mind that! You'll pay for breaking in..."

"That's enough Tayuya-chan. These are the guess that Orochimaru-sama wanted to see." Spoke a voice from behind the four of them. All four wheeled around to see a teen not much older then they were with silver hair, a pair of glasses that seemed to be a tad to big for him, a purple outfit that seemed to suite him perfectly and a calm, kind face yet with an evil glint in his eyes.

The said red head, which happened to Tayuya growled lightly before bowing to him, though it was half hearted. "Fine then you perverted bastard. But the next time this happens don't expect me to go easy on them. And the next time I catch you peeping on both Kin and I again, I will castrate your fucking balls and feed them to you on a silver platter!"

Kabuto chuckled lightly at her and shook his head as he knew she was dead serious. "I wouldn't dream of it Tayuya-chan, but it would be foolish for you to pick a fight with them as they are obviously superior to you. So go run along and I'll take them to Orochimaru-sama."

Tayuya growled lightly before pushing the three unfortunate gennin in front of her as she needed some stress relief even more than now. Kabuto chucked at her before shaking his head as he noticed Itachi standing at the entrance with a half annoyed, half stoic face. "Sorry about that, she has no manners. Please follow me."

Itachi nodded lightly and followed Kabuto through the labyrinth of darkness with Naruto, Gaara and Yugito following him in wonder. Naruto was the first to remember who Orochimaru was as he had read some history books of Konoha, even though he didn't want to. So his main question was why Rayne would accept a deal with an obvious cold hearted traitor?

He just couldn't figure it out as it made no sense unless Orochimaru had something that they needed. But then why not just take it from him, why make a deal? Was there more to the man that what he had read?

As the questions flooded Naruto's head, Itachi already had the answers to all but one. Why did Orochimaru betray the village instead of just leaving like Jiraiya and Tsunade did and kept their alliance to Konoha? He knew that both Jiraiya and Tsunade had been doing everything they could to get the village back to normal, but now they had given up and were planning something with Orochimaru.

He was fuzzy on the details, but he figured it was something that was to oust the council and take control of Konoha once more. Now that didn't mean he could return home as he did murder a few shinobi before he left. Even if it was in defense of another, he killed them without reporting it to the Sandaime.

Shaking that thought out of his, they arrived at what seemed to be the most elaborate door with an eight headed and tailed snake engraved on the door. He could only shake his head even more as Orochimaru had to make that his emblem.

Sighing lightly, Kabuto opened the door and gestured the four of them in. All four did so, but cautiously as Orochimaru did have a habit of surprising and scaring people for the hell of it. As the door closed, the room turned pitch black and al visibility was lost. Not that it mattered, all four had ways of seeing in the dark without their eyes, some more than others.

As they were about to use them, torches along the sides of the room lit up allowing them to see the pale man sitting on his throne. "Ku ku ku. Welcome to my lair. Please make yourselves comfortable."

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the raspy voice, but knew to do nothing as he was told not to before hand by Rayne. Needless to say that he wasn't the only one that already didn't like what was going on.

Shaking his head lightly, Itachi was the first to do as he said and leaned against the wall before turning to the snake sannin. "Alright, what is this deal that you and Rayne have agreed on as I believe all four of us should know since we are here as part of it."

Orochimaru nodded lightly as he sat back up and leaned up against his desk. "It's quite simple. I have agreed to lend her my shinobi and services to help you against Akatsuki and to find all the scattered pieces of Beliar's body and have already found two on my own. But in return, I want help to take back control Konoha and restore it to its former glory. I already have Jiraiya and Tsunade's help along with its own Anbu, but I doubt Konoha will cave in that easily. Therefore I need you to go in and convince as much of the younger generation to join our struggle."

Itachi nodded already knowing all of this before nodding his head lightly as he turned over to Naruto and the other two. He knew that Naruto still wasn't sure what he wanted to do about Konoha any longer as Sarutobi had died. Naruto harbored ill will for the council for the hell they gave him during the first five years of his life and killing one of the few people there that actually cared for him in Konoha.

That alone made him wish to take out his revenge against the council. But now he had a more personal motive. If it wasn't for them, he would have had his mother during his earlier years. So Itachi wasn't surprised when he saw Naruto nod his head in agreement soon followed by Yugito and Gaara.

A small smirk grew on Orochimaru's face seeing this before nodding himself figuring this and he pulled out a case and placed it on his desk. "This is the two bones I found of Beliar. It is one of his ribs along with a femur. As you already know, handling them is very dangerous as they instantly attempt to replace the exact same body part on you if you handle it without some form of equipment. Consider them payment to ensure you that I'm not just using you."

Throwing the case at Itachi, the said Uchiha caught it and looked inside and nodded as he sealed it away into a scroll. Once he did, his attention returned to the snake sannin as he had a few questions to ask, just to clarify what was going on and knew Naruto had a few of his own.

Orochimaru noticed both of their faces knew that he had to explain a few things as Naruto was the first to speak. "Why exactly did you betray Konoha and are calling for our help?"

Figuring that he would ask the question, Orochimaru sighed as he leaned back into his throne chair once more. "The answer to the first is also the answer to the second. My betrayal was a set up by both Sarutobi-sensei and Minato-kun. They both knew the roots of Konoha were becoming rotten, so they needed someone from outside the village to attempt to create a new Konoha if it came to be needed.

"So they chose me as I was the best for the job because I was the least liked of the sannin and everyone was expecting me to be doing something illegal. Even though I was, Sarutobi-sensei and Minato-kun had legalized it for me as I had been poisoned by one of Danzo's men during Minato's inauguration party when he became the Hokage."

"So both of us worked on a technique so I could survive the poison as not even Tsunade could remove it. The end result was my immortality jutsu, but there is a draw back to it. I have to change at least every three to five years as the body begins to give out on me. After I used it, the council got word of it and ordered for my execution. So Minato-kun decided to give me ne last mission, to create a new Konoha and to seek out and join a group known as Akatsuki to figure out what their plans were."

"Three months later, Kyuubi attacked Konoha due to Pein and Madara's plan to wipe out any of their threats, meaning Minato. I tried to warn him, but it was too late and he had sacrificed you to protect the village. But before he did so, he left a scroll for me detailing what he wanted me to do with Sarutobi."

"When Akira was forced out of Konoha by the council, he gave it to her and told her to join Akatsuki for spying purposes as I was. She had brought me the scroll that told me to execute the plans to create a new Konoha or root out the bad roots of the existing Konoha. I started making this village while I was still part of Akatsuki, but I learned that I'd never be able to create a village of my own as I was too heavily hunted for my status as a sannin."

"So that's when Akira popped the idea for me to leave Akatsuki so I could be able to gather myself an army to do what I needed to do. Right before I left and purposely failed to possess Fuguku once he joined, Akira told me to go to Konoha and take you to my village as it was preferable to your treatment in Konoha."

"After that, well everything is self explanatory as all of you are here. The only thing else you need to know about that is that Jiraiya, Tsunade and I have decided that it is time to root out the bad roots of Konoha. And we are going to do it during the Chunin exams, as to why I need you as it's not like I can easily march into Konoha without some sort of disguise."

"Since you three are the proper age to be gennin, I want you to pretend to be from my village and attempt to convince the Konoha gennin to join us. Now I know it might be stupid as they are only gennin, but most of the targets I want you to target are council member's children. If they now their children have turned on them, they might learn the error of their ways." Orochimaru finished without interruption.

He was slightly surprised at that as he figured that someone would have interrupted him, but then again he forgot that the only ones that really were paying attention were Naruto and Itachi. Sure the blonde and the red head were, but they weren't as interested as they were only there as Rayne ordered them to be. He noticed Naruto was nodding lightly as he absorbed everything he had told him before looking at him with his eyes turning to his Inu emerald and red.

"So the council forced you out as well and tou-san and Ojij gave you those orders... Along with kaa-san..." Orochimaru nodded at Naruto as he looked back up at him. "Then it's settled. When do the exams start?"

A small smirk grew on Orochimaru's slips as he let out a soft, dark chuckle as it was in his character to sound evil. He reached into his desk and pulled out three hitai-ates and threw them at them. "Very well then. You'll leave tomorrow with my other team being escorted by both Itachi and I in disguise. And each of you will be going by your real names. Even you Naruto, if not just to piss off the council and cause even more strife between them and the Anbu."

"Kabuto will show you to your rooms for the night. Oh, and if you would, please take your room neighbors down a few pegs for me. They have become quite annoying believing they are unbeatable." All three nodded as they left the room as Itachi stayed seeing Orochimaru still wanted to talk to him. Once they were gone, Orochimaru had turned to him. "Itachi, there is a reason I'm bring you there. It's because of your brother."

Itachi's ears perked up at this, but narrowed as he saw Orochimaru's face. "From what I've heard from Jiraiya, he has almost been turned into a weapon for Konoha. His skill is already that of jounin if not higher and he practically had no feelings of his own. The only thing is his drive for revenge against your father and to find you and kill you under their orders, but he has yet to listen to them."

"Then what do you need of me then?" Itachi asked in a monotone voice as he tried to keep the anger from entering his voice and barely succeeded.

Of course Orochimaru was a sannin for a reason and sensed it even though he hid almost perfectly. "I need you to try and bring him to our side as he has no loyalty to Konoha. If he sees you, he might just be willing to leave. If not, I'll have to mark him with a curse seal. Is that acceptable?"

Thinking on it for a few moments, Itachi nodded lightly as he looked over at the snake sannin. "If it needs be, yes. I will not allow my otouto to be their weapon."

Orochimaru nodded as he pulled out another scroll and threw it at Itachi, who easily caught it. "That is your disguise for tomorrow. Your room is right outside mine as it's the only one I could afford to spare other than the three I gave to them. So I'll take you there as it had to be a pretty long walk."

With that said, Orochimaru stood up and headed out with Itachi closely following him, now having his own reason to strike back at Konoha.

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Once Kabuto showed them their rooms, he quickly led them to the dojo as he had heard Orochimaru's request as he was getting quite tired himself of them disobeying him every time he gave them orders. Once they entered the dojo, Kabuto called the four down quickly. To say they were freaky was an understatement.

The most normal of them had to be the red head girl, Tayuya, they met at the entrance and the large guy with burnt orange. The other two were strange almost beyond any human they had met before. The spider like guy completely freaked Naruto out as the two headed guy made Yugito sick to her stomach as he was just revolting.

"Hey perverted fuck! Why did you bring these three dipshits here?" Tayuya spouted off at Kabuto once more.

The big guy turned to her with a reproachful look. "Tayuya, you know ladies shouldn't..."

"Oh shove it fat ass." She interrupted him with a glare of dislike. Then again, it seemed like she didn't like anyone.

Kabuto rolled his eyes as he restrained from medically cutting her voice box out so that she would stop cussing worse than any sailor he met before. "The reason is quite simple. Orochimaru-sama wants you to test them. If you don't wish to, go to him directly and complain and I'll guarantee you that he won't be half as courteous as I will be."

All four flinched at this before smirking. Each of them hadn't gotten to much time outside to relieve their boredom and stress. So this would be the perfect way to relieve it. The one with two heads smirked as he turned over to Kabuto. "Are we allowed to kill them?"

Kabuto only chuckled at the response as he turned to Naruto, Gaara and Yugito. "Go easy on them. I don't want to have to stay here too long to heal them. I have to leave tonight so I can get back to my espionage mission in Konoha."

Naruto nodded lightly as Kabuto moved out of the way as the four twitched in annoyance hearing this.

'That fucker doesn't believe we can beat these shit heads! I'll prove that perverted bastard we can!'

'Oh that's it. I'm going to tear these guys apart from the inside out. No one doubts me!'

'Why do I have a feeling Kabuto was telling them to go easy on us for our own safety?'

'Oh that's it I'm so going to... OOH A FLY!'

After a brief delay as Kidomaru chased a fly to the embarrassment to all there, the four were ready to battle as Naruto, Gaara and Yugito looked quite bored even though the fly chasing was quite amusing.

This annoyed all but Jirubo even further as Kidomaru attacked them with intent to kill. Within a blink of an eye, Yugito was in front of him and back handed the spider man into the wall, creating a large crater as a knocked out Kidomaru fell out of the said crater.

All three of the remaining elite guards of Orochimaru eyes widened seeing this as sand began to pour out of Gaara's gourd. Seeing this, Tayuya pulled out her flute and began to play to catch them in one of her more powerful genjutsu, not wanting to be punched like the dumb spider was.

Naruto noticing that it was a genjutsu made eye contact with Gaara, who nodded in agreement as sand began to rise into the sky like a cloud. Seeing this, all three tried to jump away only to be kicked into each other by something they could see and Naruto had seemed to disappear for a brief nano second before reappearing were he was.

None of them could figure out what happened, but it didn't matter as sand began to fall from above and wrap around them tightly, keeping them from moving. Gaara seeing this held out his hand, indicating this match with over as if he clenched his hand into a fist, it was all over for them.

Yugito seeing this walked over to them. "I would consider forfeiting now as no human has ever survived being caught by his sand." To emphasize her point, she flipped her hood over her head to reveal her cat ears and slanted eyes.

Sudden realization hit them that they had been fighting demons the entire time and Kabuto had apparently set them up. The door suddenly opened and Orochimaru walked in and shook his head lightly. "Damn, didn't even get here in time to watch the short beating. Oh well, let them go. I'll deal with them now seeing they have been humiliated now."

Naruto nodded before sighing as he wasn't even tested. Hell, he doubted anyone stronger than Gobi could really challenge him if he went all out, but then again he didn't want to use that form as it was extremely difficult to substance. Without it, he was on Itachi's level, though the prodigal Uchiha refused to admit that and claimed he was going half speed during their mach battles.

He doubted it as Itachi had to resort to the Mangekyou a few times and even Amaterasu on one occasion. Of course the spar ended with Rayne beating the hell out of him for using that in a friendly spar. "No problem. Now if that's all, I'm kind of tired as I've been training heavily these past couple of months."

Orochimaru nodded as Naruto left towards his room with Gaara and Yugito following him closely. Once they left, Orochimaru smirked as he looked over to his beaten elite guard. Oh he knew both Konoha and Akatsuki was screwed now.

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Outside the room, Naruto sighed as he stretched out and looked over at Yugito and smiled lightly at her. For some reason over the last two years he had developed a light crush on her. Of course Gobi tried to beat it the hell out of him when she realized it was there, but it was to no avail.

In fact all it did was make her spend more time with Naruto as she had the best natural talent in healing out of all of them. Shaking that thought from his mind, he turned to his room as Gaara entered his before turning back to her just before she entered her.

"Hey Yugito." Hearing Naruto call her, she turned over to him with a light smile before yawning loudly as she was pulled out of training before they headed here. Seeing this, Naruto decided to speak quickly so she could get some sleep. "I was wondering, maybe I could show you around when we get to Konoha."

Blinking a few times at his odd request, her eyes widened mentally as she held back a blush as she realized he was asking her out. Shaking that thought off as she sure he didn't attend it to be like that, but still. "Sure Naruto. I would like that."

Smiling at her, Naruto nodded. "Alright, will do Neko-chan. Now get some sleep."

Yugito blush at the name as he had made it himself. At first it was just meant to be a cute, annoying name for him to call her, but now for some reason she liked it. "I will. Night."

Naruto nodded as they both entered their rooms with light smiles on their face. From within his room, Gaara shook his head as the eye of sand from outside dissolved.

How he wished they would just say it already and be over with it.

It was getting quite annoying that he was ready to lock them in one of his sand sphere and keep them in there till they admitted it. Sighing and shaking his head, Gaara saw the bed and dove into it as ever since he could go to sleep, it became a hobby.

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"So why exactly are you three coming along with us? I thought Orochimaru-sama only assigned us to the Chunin Exams." Asked the black haired girl wearing an Oto kunoichi uniform with a purple ribbon tied to the back of her hair.

Yugito shook her head lightly as she turned to the girl with a slight smile on her face as she actually had a girl her age to talk to. But before she could answer her, she glance over at the disguised Orochimaru and Itachi who nodded that it was okay to tell her.

Seeing this, she turned back to Kin and answered her. "Well, Orochimaru offered our caretaker and trainer an offer she couldn't refuse and all he wanted in return was us to help with the upcoming invasion any way we can, which happens to be quite a lot."

Kin nodded at the cat eared girl, who was convinced to leave her hood off as they would need visual ID anyways and there was no point in hiding the ears anyways as they would end up being shown sooner or later. Of course soon as she showed them to the other group of gennin, it was all that Kin and Zaku could focus on as it was just so weird, or in Zaku's mind, hot.

Of course after threatening glares from Naruto, Kin and Yugito, he stopped staring. "Ah I see. The more help the better I guess. Hey, you beat Tayuya and the Sound Four yesterday right?" Getting a nod from the cat hanyou, she continued on a bit more excited. "Then can you train me during the breaks in the exams? I promise I'll work hard!"

A slight smile graced Yugito's lips as she heard Kin say this. For once she could be the one torturing... training someone instead of her, Naruto or Gaara going through hell.

As she nodded both Itachi and Orochimaru kept from laughing out loud as they knew exactly what Yugito was thinking, the latter was cackling evilly in his mind while absently wanting to know how they trained as he was slightly interested knowing that it was quite possible that Yugito and Gaara together could beat him. Naruto wasn't even a contest as he had already proved able to defeat two Akatsuki members at once and he knew that he would have had a hard time duplicating the same feat.

On the other side of the group, both Gaara and Dosu were arguing over...

"Making their brain explode with sound waves."

"Crushing their body with sand."

"Exploding dammit!"

"Crushing."

"EXPLODING!"

Over which way of killing their opponent was worse. Needless to say neither was convincing the other very well. Ignoring the one sided fight argument between the two, Naruto and Zaku shook their heads.

Naruto sighed lightly as he continued looking down the road, hoping they were close to arriving as he wasn't sure he could contain himself from yelling at the two of them. "I swear when we get to Konoha, we will separate those two so this will never happen again."

Zaku nodded in agreement as he kept stealing looks over at Kin and Yugito. Naruto noticed this and felt slight jealously washing over and thought about beating him into the ground, but he restrained himself from doing so as it wouldn't look good for him to do so. So to keep from doing just that, he pushed a minute amount of his vampiric energy into his blades to have them spring into place and began checking their sharpness by lightly running his finger on them.

Just the light touch easily cut his finger so he had them fold back into place as he sucked his finger to stop the blood flow while enjoying his own taste. Zaku shivered lightly as he along with Kin and Dosu were told that he was half vampire with immunity to the sun. "Dude, can you not enjoy that so much? It's really creeping my out."

Naruto smirk hearing this as he pulled his finger out his mouth as the bleeding had stopped and turned towards Zaku. "If you're offering me a pint of blood, I might reconsider it."

The blood drained from Zaku's face as he stepped back in fear along with Dosu and Kin as they heard Naruto saying this and really hoping he was just joking around. A small smirk graced both his and Gaara's lips seeing their reactions as Yugito rolled her eyes at him. "Naruto, stop trying to creep everyone out already. You have entire scroll filled with package blood in your pouch."

"Ah, but that stuff is nasty compared to it coming straight from the body." Naruto countered with a larger grin in on his face making the three sound gennin back up even further from him while using Gaara and Yugito as shields.

"Naruto, enough. Stop playing around since we are almost to Konoha. Save that talk for the Chunin Exams." Itachi sternly spoke as his eyes focused on Naruto while refraining from activating his Sharingan as he was sure they were within ear range of Konoha shinobi now.

Looking forward once more, Naruto noticed the fortified walls of Konoha and nodded his head as now wasn't the time to play around. He could see that there wasn't many people guarding the walls, but the ones that were had an abundance of chakra leaving him to suspect that they were all at least jounin level shinobi.

Not that it matter as he probably would be considered a S-class shinobi and the fact that he fought better against stronger opponents then he did against weaker ones as he had a tendency to hold back. Noticing that they had reached the gate, he reverted his eyes to his mother's blues as what seemed to be an Anbu wearing a mask with Ne on it stopped them. "Halt! State your reason for entering the village."

"We're here for the Chunin Exams. These are both teams that my village sent to compete." Orochimaru spoke in an altered voice to keep himself from being instantly recognized.

The root Anbu looked over all of them and nodded lightly as he understood. "Alright then, show me your and your gennin's paperwork and I'll let you through."

Naruto winced at this knowing that they were going to notice who he was right away and stall them from entering the village, but part of him wanted that so he could piss of the council and villagers. The disguised Orochimaru handed the Anbu their paperwork while purposely putting Naruto's on the bottom having the same thoughts of his younger counter part though he wasn't going to be revealing himself.

The Anbu quickly went through all the names till her reached the last one and his eyes narrowed dangerously as he read the last one before turning towards Naruto. "The demon. I hereby execute you for your crimes against Konoha!"

He quickly pulled out his ninjato as Naruto sprung both his blades in place ready to defend himself as the Anbu started to charge but was suddenly stopped as a tree root wrapped around his waist while a snake from above wrapped itself around his neck baring its fangs and ready to strike at a moments notice.

Suddenly two normal Anbu dropped down, one wearing a dragon mask and the other wearing a snake mask. The dragon masked one was easily a male due to his figure and the snake was easily female due to her bust. Orochimaru instantly recognized the female as Itachi was the same for the male as the dragon Anbu spoke. "If you do, you will start a war with their village and us as well. Now put back your blade and leave."

The said Anbu looked at both of them and growled lightly to himself, but knew he didn't have a choice. The female Anbu took the papers away from them before handing them back to the disguised Orochimaru as the root Anbu growled out at the dragon Anbu. "This isn't over!" With that he shushined away to tell his superiors.

The dragon Anbu only shook his head knowing there would be hell to pay. Turning towards the Oto group, he bowed lightly and apologized. "I apologize for that. A lot of the village has not gotten over the event twelve years ago and is still very bitter."

Naruto nodded along with the disguised Itachi and Orochimaru as they had figured this already. But being himself, Naruto spoke up. "Ah, it really wouldn't have mattered. He couldn't have done anything to me if he tried. In fact I'm kind of looking forward to another riot like the one when I was five so I can finally pay them back, don't you agree?"

Both Anbu flinched at the venom laced in Naruto's voice as he looked over them. He of course said this on purpose to gauge their reactions and to sniff out how they felt about him and could detect nothing but sadness, sorrow and anger. Smelling those emotions coming from them, he gave a quick glance at Itachi and Orochimaru and nodded at them. Neither of them needed to be told to as they already knew who they were and the same could be said for them.

Sighing lightly the dragon Anbu looked at Naruto before looking down. "I'm sorry I wasn't there on that day. A lot of us were out on missions that day and I suspect the council had a hand in that as if they were planning on it."

Naruto grunted lightly as he fully suspected that they would do something like that and was about to speak again when Itachi interrupted him. "Is there somewhere more private for us to speak Yamato?"

Yamato nodded as he motioned them to follow before turning to snake Anbu. "Guard the gate till they return to do so. When they do you, return immediately as they'll most likely try to arrest you."

The female Anbu grinned under her mask as she heard this as she absently fingered a kunai in her pouch. "Good, it has been rather boring as of lately. People have been avoiding more and more and I have no one to play with or feed to Manda."

Orochimaru sighed hearing this and shook his head at her. "Now I understand the reason for his absence at times and his lack of asking me for tributes." Shaking his head as he realized he said that out loud, he looked over at her. "Try and cut down on summoning him unless you really need him or offering him food. Other people do have to use him."

"Hai, hai sensei."

Yamato growled lightly at her slight insubordination. "Anko! You know not to say anything as we could be spied on right now! When they come, do not try to confront them, understand."

Anko nodded lightly as she looked over at her commander with slight fear as Yamato was dosing her in concentrated killer intent that was enough to catch the former jinchuurikis and Gaara's attention. Seeing that she was listening now, he turned towards the disguised Itachi and Orochimaru. "Alright then, follow me. The rest will have to stay behind for now and you can fill them in later."

Naruto looked a little put out by this, but as long as he knew it wasn't extremely important to him as Itachi and Orochimaru quickly followed Yamato. Shaking his head, he walked through the gates without care, but was quickly grabbed by Yugito who seemed to be glaring at him. "Change your eyes so it will be harder to tell who you are."

Seeing Gaara nodding along with her, Naruto refrained from growling at them as he wanted some confrontation. But seeing the look the neko hanyou was giving him, he conceded and changed his eyes to Rayne's emerald. "Thank you. I didn't want to have to deal with too much today."

He couldn't help but blink in a moment of confusion before remembering what he had told her yesterday and nodded lightly. "Alright then. I'll guess I'll show you around. At least what I remember of it as it could have changed."

Hearing this, Kin walked up besides Yugito and looked straight at him. "Excuse me. Seeing that all of us are going to be here for a while, I think it would be courteous that we get to know the village better." The others nodded along with her as they all stood behind Yugito.

Both former vessels growled mentally at this as they were looking forward to some alone time without someone watching them. Glancing at each other, Naruto turned back to the rest of the group. "Didn't you get briefed on the lay out?"

Zaku shook his head at him as he answered. "Nope. We were just told what the three exams were as we won't be doing anything of much importance when the time comes."

Naruto blinked hearing this as he heard this, not knowing what the tests were going to be himself as Itachi didn't tell him. "Alright, I'll take you along with us in exchange for knowing what the exams are going to be."

Yugito glared at Naruto as he said this, trying to drill a hole in his head as she didn't want to bring them along for any reason and was even more pissed when all three of the sound gennin nodded in agreement. Gritting her teeth lightly, she turned around and huffed.

Naruto could only shake his head as he placed his hand on her back. "Sorry, but you know Gaara would have come with us and they most likely would have followed us anyways."

Yugito growled lightly and even louder when Zaku nodded in agreement before sighing and shaking her head. "Alright. Now what are the exams then?"

"The first one is a written exam. It is fairly basic knowledge for most chunin, but the purpose in the exam is to test our espionage abilities. The second is a survival test. I'm not exactly sure on the details, but we will be up against the rest of the teams. The third exam is a tournament against the ones that passed the second exam, but their might be something before it to cut down the number of gennin in it if there are too many." Dosu answered in his usual, dark monotone voice.

"So nothing we need worry about then. Hm. The second exam sound like the most likely one where we'll be able to recruit anyone. Once we know what the objective is, we'll start working on that." Both Yugito and Gaara nodded in agreement.

The sound three looked slightly confused at that, but figured it to be something that Orochimaru or the other guy asked them to do as they had a job to do in the second exam as well. "Alright then, I guess I'll start showing you around, but remember things most likely have changed since I've last been here."

All five nodded as they began to follow Naruto. They noticed some of the looks at them, but most were of confusion after a slight anger as they couldn't recognize Naruto. Yugito was slightly happy at that as she had known if Naruto had used either set of his blue eyes something bad would happen. Not that they couldn't handle it, but they were told to try and stay low by Itachi, Orochimaru and a severely injured Jiraiya in the hospital wing in Oto.

Twenty minutes had passed quickly and Naruto had shown them around the town, but mainly the major sites. They would have continued, but Naruto's stomach interrupted with a large roar. "Well, I guess that ends my little tour. How about we get something to eat?"

"Um, I thought you were a vampire and I thought vampires don't eat regular food. Then again, they aren't supposed to be able to stand day light." Kin said in a thoughtful, yet slightly confused tone.

Naruto just shook his head as he chuckled lightly and decided to answer her as he couldn't sense anyone or see anyone with his aura vision that was nearby. "That would be the case if I was a full fledged vampire. But I'm only a half breed so the sun doesn't really effect me. And add in my other side, I can eat normal food as well. Just I have to have a decent supply of blood otherwise my vampiric instinct will take over and make me feed on the closest creature to me."

At this all three of the sound gennin flinch, none more so then Zaku. Seeing this, Naruto decided to continue on. "I haven't let that happen since I was six and don't plan to again, so don't worry. It was like I was a wild animal with no control over what I did and I didn't like it one bit."

All three of them calmed down slightly as they were glad to know he would just go wild on them and try to drain them of all their blood. Yugito could only shake her head lightly as she turned to Naruto. "Say, didn't you say there was a restaurant you use to always go to since they were always nice to you."

Naruto's eyes lit up as he instantly remembered the place as it was his favorite area in Konoha and was hoping they were still there so he could get some ramen. "Oh yeah! Ichiraku's Ramen. It serves all kind of flavors from vegetable to pizza flavored. I'm still wondering how they managed to make that flavor come out so perfect that it tasted like actual pizza..."

Before he could continue on about the wonders of ramen, which he seemed to still be addicted to despite all odds, he noticed the sound of someone panting and a pitter of foot steps. Turning around lightly as he sensed that was were the sound was coming from, a young boy wearing ragged clothing, a frail frame, brown hair and a face that slightly resembled Sarutobi's ran into his thigh and fell straight to the ground with swirly eyes.

Naruto refrained from chuckling at the boy as he probably felt like he just ran into an iron wall; he offered his hand to the young boy. "You should be more careful. You could have ran into someone like Gaara here. He probably would have just threatened to crush you if you did it again."

The young boy paled at that and looked over at the red head and nodded lightly as he accepted Naruto's hand and was helped up. "Thanks... OH KAMI! THE PINK HAIRED MONSTER IS HERE!"

With that said, he hid behind Naruto as a young girl with bright pink hair ran into the area steaming like a bull. Following her was a boy that seemed a year or two older then her with pitch black hair, a stoic face and was currently painting something on a notebook.

Naruto couldn't help but sweat drop at the young boy's statement and couldn't help but agree if he was in his position he would have said the same damn thing about the girl. Luckily enough, the girl didn't seem stupid enough to continue on as she noticed the six of them. Of course he could only shake his head as he turned to the young boy. "Alright, what did you do to piss her off?"

"Um, I could her a bitch because she was treated me like I didn't exist and for calling me an unlovable outcast since I was orphaned when my grandfather died." The young boy spoke nervously.

In an instant, Naruto's eyes had narrowed and his eyes shifted to his Inu red and emerald, surprising and scaring the young boy as he turned to the pink haired girl before turning back to him seeing that he was telling the truth. "Is that so? Well you had every right to. No one should make fun of for being an orphan."

His gaze turned back the girl, who was slightly unnerved by the change of his eye color as it reminded her of her teammate's ability to turn his eyes red. "And you girly should be above calling people names. You're a kunoichi aren't you?"

Seeing her nod lightly, he continued on. "Then start acting like one. Shinobi have better things to do then calling young kids names." With that said, he turned his back on her and put his should on the young boy's shoulder. "Come on. I was about to treat my team and friends for dinner."

The young boy looked ecstatic as he at the thought of food nodded energetically. Naruto smiled lightly at him as Yugito could only shake her head as the others looked confused, not counting Gaara since he shrugged his shoulders uncaringly.

Soon as they were about to walk off, the said pink haired girl took a few steps forward and spoke to them in a loud, but not yelling tone. "And why should I listen to you? You aren't even Konoha shinobi only here for the Chunin Exams. You have no right to interfere with our business anyways so get lost."

Finally getting annoyed at the young girl, Naruto was about to turn around when Yugito placed her hand on his shoulder and turned around herself and glared at the pink haired girl. "And you should keep your business out of ours. He ran into us so he has every right to seek out our protection. Now if you would excuse us."

Yugito turned back around and started walking off with the others leaving a fuming Konoha kunoichi. Without thinking twice, she shouted out loud at her. "Hmp! You only say that because you have your friends around bitch! I bet I could take you out in a one on one match! But I bet you're just on you're team for moral support and to be a hole to fill up!"

Before Yugito could whirl around in anger, Naruto had disappeared from behind the young orphan and appeared right in front of the pink haired kunoichi and gripped her throat tightly.

Everyone besides Gaara and Yugito were stunned at his speed and the young teen wasn't able to react in time to stop him as he began to lift her up like a rag doll. She quickly gripped his wrist with both of her hands while avoiding touching the blade and tried to crush his wrist only to fail.

Naruto narrowed his eyes at this as the pressure on his wrist was much more then he anticipated. 'What the hell? If I didn't know better I would say this girl's strength might match that of Yugito's. Damn, they really are turning their young into weapons!' Before he could think any further, his left struck out to his side and grabbed a rock in mid air and crushed it with ease as he glared at the girl in his grasp.

"I'll say this once and only once. If you fail to do so, I will rip out your heart and feast on it in front of you dying eyes. Never insult my friends and teammates. And never, ever insult a child again otherwise if I learn about it, I will hunt you down. Understand!" He emphasized his point as his eyes flashed gold while concentrated a massive amount of killer intent on her.

Her eyes widened in pure fear as his killing intent washed over her. It was nothing she felt before even when they lost their sensei during their trip to the Wave. It felt like he had absolute power over her and would willingly kill her if he needed to and he was making sure she knew it was the truth from his statement.

Not only that, the air around her seemed to have frozen as it felt like it was below zero and she began shivering and shuddering under the pressure. She couldn't help it as she tried to cross her legs as she lost control of her blatter.

Naruto sniffed the air a bit and flinched in disgust as he dropped her from his grip and she fell to the ground, shaking and shivering as she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stay warm. In an instant, the one that threw the rock at him was at her side showing that he had raven colored hair and other features like that of Itachi.

In an instant he recognized him as Sasuke and turned around, not wanting to have to deal with him now. Before he could get far enough a way, he heard the icy cold words of the young Uchiha. "That was uncalled for. Just who do you think you are?!"

"It might have been, but my point was made. She should not try to pick fights and go around making orphans feel unwanted. They are already alone enough as it is. And in this exam you will learn who I am Uchiha as we will meet sooner or later and everything you want can come true. Till that time, I bid you farewell." Naruto spoke in a calm, yet deadly voice without turning around to meet his eyes, therefore not noticing that his Sharingan was fully developed.

Before Sasuke could respond, Naruto, Gaara, Yugito and the sound three along with the orphaned boy rounded the corner. He could only sigh and shake his head as he looked down at Sakura. 'Dammit. As much as I hate to have her breaking down like this, she does need to learn. And I wonder what he meant by everything I want can come true? Wait, does he know about my tou-san and aniki!'

As he was about to chase after them, their newly appoint jounin-sensei jumped into the area. "What the hell happened here?"

---------------------------

"Hm. It seems the former Kyuubi vessel is impressive." Spoke a young man wearing a black cloak with a few red clouds spaced around it as he put up a bloody kunai.

His hair was dark brown and his face had a slight regal appearance to it. But his eyes were what brought attention to him as the white of his eyes were a dark yellow that were not quite gold and his pupil was a black, four point shuriken with a rather large iris in the middle.

"Yes, but he is not our target. What of the Ichibi vessel?" Came from a young female wearing the same cloak as the man. She had dirty blonde hair with deep blue eyes and a slightly feral look to her face.

The young man could only shake his head as he picked up the dead Konoha shinobi and threw it off the wall and into the forest. "I didn't see anything of value about him. It is obvious he is much stronger then he was two years ago just by appearance alone. Other then that I have nothing. We'll have to wait for the exams to start before I can measure him up before we attempt to go capture him."

"And of the Beliar piece that is suppose to be here?" The teenage kunoichi asked as she threw another two bodies off the wall that seemed that they were impaled by large spikes.

"Seems like one of the gennin coming to his exam has one implanted into him. Which one of the gennin and what part I'm not entirely sure on, but it is one from Kusagakure."

"That's all we needed Rikimaru. Let's get out of here for now and report to Pein."

"Lead the way Rei."

The girl shook her head before jumping off the wall and the young male followed her into the wilderness outside of Konoha.

---------------------------

"So you met up with Sasuke today and the Sandaime's grandson?" Itachi spoke in his light tone as he sipped on his cup of tea while Naruto nodded his head.

Both were setting at the coffee table as the others were asleep in their rooms, except for Orochimaru who was still out. "Well, other then pissing off the council today, which we already knew would happen, I can understand why you did that. The girl stepped out of line and you put her back in place. Now, what was Sasuke like?"

Naruto shook his head as he sipped on his tea lightly. "Can't say much as we didn't stick around lightly. He did seem defensive of his teammate, which is a plus side seeing that Konoha seems to be trying to make the younger generation into weapons. I also gave him what he needed to hear so he'll come seek me out."

Itachi raised his eyebrow at him before nodding his head as he knew Naruto would do so. "Fine with me. You're the best bet to get him onto our side without Orochimaru resorting to the curse seal."

"So that's what he was planning for him. Hn, can't say I'm surprised. I saw it in his eyes that he is becoming unstable, but the same can be said about me as well." Naruto answered as he downed the last of his tea. "So what did Yamato say when you followed him?"

Pulling out two pocky sticks, Itachi threw one to Naruto as he opened his and began to lightly munch on it before answering. "Just like Jiraiya and Orochimaru had told us before. Konoha is on the verge of a civil war. While most are still obeying what the council tells it, for the most part, they are silently rebelling against them. Mostly everyone there agreed with Orochimaru's plan except being allowed to evacuate a good portion of the citizens as some are innocent and don't deserve to be put through this."

Naruto huffed at that as he took a bit out of the pocky stick while Itachi sighed at him. "Naruto I know you disagree with that, but some truly are. Would you like it if Konohamaru to get caught up in the attack?" Naruto looked down and shook his head as he swallowed another bite of pocky. "I thought not. That's why we are going to allow them to evacuate some to the safe houses when we attack."

Taking another bite of his pocky and chewing it for a bit, he pulled out a scroll and rolled it over the table at Naruto. Instinctively grabbing it, Naruto looked at Itachi in questioning when the Uchiha took another bite of his pocky before answering him. "It's a scroll a certain green freak took from his old friends apartment and thought you would want it as he was suppose to be one of your god fathers. And don't think about not using it, I know one technique on there and it is very useful in tight situations."

Nodding lightly as he finished the pocky stick Itachi gave him; Naruto stood up and stretched lightly. "Well, time to call it a night seeing as I have to get up in six hours. Damn them for having the exams during the day. I'm still not use to getting up before its night fall."

Itachi nodded in agreement as he finished up his stick of pocky before pulling out another. "Same here, but get use to it. I have a feeling a few of the competitors will be worth the time of day. And if not you can always look forward to fighting Gaara and Yugito."

Naruto nodded in agreement as he walked over to his room before stopping as he turned back to Itachi. "Hey Itachi. Do you think I can bring Konohamaru back to the mansion after this is all over?"

Blinking in surprise at Naruto's question, the Uchiha quickly recovered himself before shrugging. "If he wants to, but you'll have to run it by Rayne first and she won't be here for a few days."

Nodding as he suspected that answer, Naruto opened his door and slid into the room to try and get some sleep.

---------------------------

As dawn approached, Naruto was inspecting his blades so they would be prepared for later today. He knew for the first exam they had no use, but a little fear tactics always helped. Besides, he hardly ever took them off unless he was asleep or taking a shower. Deeming them ready, he folded them back before clipping on both bracelets that was attached to the blades.

As he finished with them, he grabbed his weapons pouch, which was full of scrolls and checked to see if all of them were there as it wouldn't be a good thing if he didn't have any blood to feed on if his urges began.

Seeing that all were there, he quickly stood up and exited his room only to see Itachi sitting at the table, looking as if hadn't move at all. Shaking his head at the Uchiha, who was eating another stick of pocky, he leaned against the wall to await the others to get up. "So did you stay up all night eating pocky or fell asleep sitting there?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Was Itachi's only response as he continued munching on his favored stick, seemingly uncaring to the rest of the world around him.

Naruto could only shake his head more at his god father as he heard a stiffed yawn behind him as Yugito stumbled out of her room, mumbling under her breath that it was too early to be waking up for this. A small smile graced his lips hearing her say this as he completely agreed with her.

e quickly caught himself looking at her rear as she stumbled to the coffee pot and instantly looking away, swearing to the deity above that he did not check her out. Of course it wasn't helping that he swore he caught Itachi with a coy grin on his face, but it could have and was most likely figment of his imagination as the Uchiha was eating his pocky once more.

Taking a deep breath to get his hormones out of his system, he took a look around the room to try and keep his attention from Yugito, but with an accidental flick of her tail his attention was back on her butt. 'Dammit! Will she stop doing that?! I'm not trying to pay attention to her plump... GODDAMMIT!"

Luckily for him, his attention was averted from the wiggling as Gaara appeared at the table in a swirl of sand just as Yugito was finished pouring herself a cup of coffee and turning around. So she didn't notice that Naruto had been looking at her as she sat down at the table, a space away from Gaara. "So any idea on what we are going to do for each exam now that we know of the second exam?"

Naruto nodded from his place at the wall as he flexed out his clawed hands. "Yeah. For the first exam, we each do ourselves. I know both you and Gaara have ways to spy on the disguised chunin and I'm quite confident I can as well. As for our survival test in the forest, I would say we collect our scrolls quickly and a spare two if we run into Orochimaru's team. Since it has a five day time limit, I would say we use the time to convince any Konoha gennin to join our cause. Now if they refuse at any point, Yugito I want you to wipe their mind and if you can't, either Gaara or I will personally take care of it them."

Both nodded in understanding as Itachi finished up his stick of pocky before growling lightly as he reached into his pocket and found none left. Outstretching his hand towards Naruto, the young dual breed groaned as he dropped the scroll into the Uchiha's hand before grumbling about the seemingly all knowing Uchiha.

As he was grumbling, another door opened and the snake sannin fell through it and began crawling towards the coffee pot. Everyone couldn't help but sweat drop at the scene as he poured himself a cup of coffee and took a few sips of it. "I swear I’ll never understand how people wake up at this ungodly hour without coffee.”

Quickly following him from their rooms, the sound three stumbled and bumbled their way into the room. Kin was the only exception as she had fallen to the ground and was out cold. After a little while, all three came around and eating breakfast that was cooked by Itachi as it was the smell that had woken everyone except for Naruto as he was already up by the time he started cooking.

Soon as they had finished eating, Zaku yawned loudly making Naruto, Itachi and Yugito flinch at the sound before looking over at them. "Why exactly did you wake us this early? The exam doesn't even start till ten."

Naruto shook his head as he already understood Itachi's reason for doing so as he answered for him. "It's quite simple. The ones that want to pass this exam more then anything will be there early, therefore it would be best to get there first so we can see who all is serious about this exam. This will make us targets for the earlier risers ourselves, but I'll doubt you have to worry about it too much. There might be some though that can give you trouble, so take these." He finished as he tossed three kunai with triple blades with kanji and seals covering it.

Orochimaru's eyes went wide in astonishment while his three gennin looked at Naruto in confusion. Naruto was about to answer them when Orochimaru suddenly spoke. "You can use it?!"

The dual half breed scoffed at the snake sannin while nodding his head. "Yes, I can use it and without the kunai as it is part of my vampiric bloodline. Father needed the kunai to activate his vampiric blood while I just need the kunai to act as markers so I'll know where to head in case someone is and if they need help."

Orochimaru's jaw dropped further in amazement as he looked at Naruto with more respect and understanding why he was viable threat to Akatsuki. Naruto smirked more seeing this as he stretched out. "And to tell you, I really don't use it anymore. There are much faster techniques then it and I know one of them. And add in that both Kyuubi and Rayne can out run me while using it makes it obsolete."

As he finished, Orochimaru's jaw was on the floor in shock and utter amazement as Naruto and Itachi chuckled at the priceless face of the snake sannin and were tempted to take a picture of it to memorialize the moment in history.

Both of them shook that thought out of their head as one took out a stick of pocky and began to munch on it as the other pushed himself off the wall. "Alright, it's time to head out. Remember to put those kunai into the ground if you are in situation you can't get out of."

The sound three nodded, still not sure what the kunais did but knew it was linked to some sort of speed technique that Orochimaru had great respect and fear of. All five stood up from the table and followed Naruto out of the hotel room and headed over to the academy.

After a few minutes of walking, all but Zaku and Kin noticed they were being followed, but were soon filled in as Dosu whispered into their ears. Activating his aura vision, Naruto looked through the buildings to notice they were being followed by what seemed to be root Anbus on their left and right.

'Hm. Three on the left, four on the right. If they are hostile, I'll have to dispatch of them quickly without showing off too much as there seems to be someone watching. I don't want a blood bath right now, but if they leave me no choice I'll be forced to. But why can't I see the one watching?'

Putting that thought aside for now, he narrowed his eyes as one from the right jumped down in front of them. The others stopped along with him as he turned back them and whispered so only they could hear. "If he attacks, don't do anything. I'll take care of this."

As he said this, the Root Anbu unsheaved out his ninjato and struck at him. In an instant, Naruto's blades sprang forth before folding back as the Anbu suddenly stopped. The sound three looked confused as to what happened, but both Gaara and Yugito knew what happened instantly as they noticed that the foot prints where Naruto was standing were slightly off meaning he had moved and the dripping of blood coming from the blades.

Blood began seeping out of the man's shoulders as before his hands fell off, gushing a small amount of blood towards Naruto, but not far enough to hit him. As soon as the arms hit the ground with the ninjato in hand, it shattered into a nearly hundreds of bloody pieces.

Kin gasped in surprise and shock as the Anbu's body fell apart into dozens of pieces, splashing and staining the ground with blood, bones and flesh. Kin couldn't take the sight as it was the most gruesome thing she had ever seen before and ran to the side and hurled.

Ignoring her for now, Naruto turned towards the Root Anbu gripping their ninjato from above. "Unless you wish to become like him, leave now and inform your council that any act of violence towards me from now on is cause for me to retaliate, which will result in death. Now be gone!"

He laced killer intent along with his vampiric blood lust and focused it on all six of them and in an instant each was gone, most likely fearing for their lives. Seeing that they were gone, Naruto turned to Gaara. "Bury it."

Gaara nodded as his sand flowed out of his gourd and swept the flesh and bones from the area and shoved them into the ground before his sand returned leaving a blood stain and a sickening scent where the flesh and bones had been. Yugito walked over to Kin and rubbed her back gently to calm her nerves as Naruto pulled out a rag from his pouch and wiped off the blood from the blade, but leaving a little for a fear effect when others noticed it was actual blood on his blades.

Once Kin recovered enough to move again, they slowly made their way towards the academy with her giving him the occasional glance of fear, now knowing what he could do. Dosu had nothing but respect for him killing the man in a very brutal way, yet in a quick manner so he didn't likely feel it till the very last second.

Zaku's fear grew of him grew as well, but another thought went through his head that override the fear. 'That was fucking kick ass! I'm so glad he's on our side!'

Before long they were at the academy and noticed that almost no one was there and Naruto confirmed that when he checked it out with his aura vision and noticed that no one was in the building. Turning it off, he shook his head. "No one is inside, so let's head straight to room 311 and wait for the others." 'And why do I feel like we're still being watched? Dammit, I'm getting paranoid. Guess that's a good thing, especially for Gaara's case.'

They quickly scaled the first two floors since no one was there and they entered the designated room for the first exam. Looking around for a moment, Naruto leaned against the wall about four to five meters from the entrance as the sound gennin took the seats right in front of him. Yugito sat down on one of the tables as Gaara stood between all of them while staying off to the side.

A few minutes passed when the door opened to reveal Kabuto and what seemed to be two of his teammates wearing Konoha hitai-ates. When their eyes met, both Naruto and Kabuto nodded at each other as the latter walked over to them. "Morning Naruto-san. Figured you would be here early so I dragged my fellow spies with me."

Naruto nodded again at him as he looked over at the second in command of Oto. "So what's going on and why are you here?"

Kabuto grinned as he pushed his glasses back on his nose before answering him. "Ah, you see I'm still a gennin here in Konoha." Naruto along with the sound gennin raised their eyebrows in slightly surprise knowing how strong he actually was. "Shocking I know, but I purposely failed ever gennin test I've taken to make them everyone think I'm a push over."

"As for why I'm here, I'm to try and get close to Sasuke in case we need to mark him. Also, I'm here to give you some information of the gennin of Konoha." Naruto nodded once more and Kabuto continued. "Since putting in their new gennin test, it is harder for anyone to pass, so all the nobodies are eliminated before they can get here."

"But there are a few that you need to keep an eye out for and try to convince them to our side. The first is Hyuuga Hinata. Early in her life, she was a timid girl from what I remember, but now she has become ice cold and doesn't seem to have a conscience, but this isn't true. She just hides her frail nature behind this mask to keep from getting hurt."

"She is daughter to the council member, Hyuuga Hiashi. He was very adamant on either killing you as a child or to turn you into a weapon. He is also the second in command of the council, only behind Danzo in power and second to none in influence since the Uchiha clan was wiped out. She should easily join since she despises her father with a passion."

"Her team will be a problem as both Aburame Shino and Inuzaku Kiba most likely cannot be convinced. While the Aburame normally rely on their logic, they have a stubborn streak when it comes to Kyuubi and you since you use to hold him. Now you could possibly get him to join our cause, it's unlikely as he will follow his clan and his father's decisions."

"The Inuzaku is much the same, except it seems that he was raised and trained for the specific purpose of hunting you down and ending your life. So if you two meet, he'll most likely be a counter to what they believe you can do. As I see it, the best thing to do is to knock both unconscious and have the former heiress to the Hyuuga clan join us."

"The next is her cousin, Hyuuga Neji. He will also be quite easy to recruit and can even get the entire branch house to join us with the promise of removing the cage bird on their forehead. While he has no attachments to Hiashi, the Hyuuga head will have a hard time doing anything to him as he loved his brother too much and is the only thing keeping him from turning the branch house into slaves."

"His teammates won't be too much of a bother as the kid molded after Gai will follow his sensei and weapon girl's father is part of the rebellion anyways. Only leaves convincing him which won't be too much trouble."

"On Sasuke's team, the only one worth trying is the pink haired girl you ran into yesterday, Haruno Sakura. But it seems that she may be a hopeless cause since her mother has practically brain washed her. The other kid don't even bother with, he is a special Root Anbu put into the team so there is no hope to convert him."

"Finally there is the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. I hate to say this, but the girl will be the easiest to convince as long as you convince Sasuke. The larger boy will be moderately difficult as you will have to get him alone and be friendly with him. Then there is the skinny slacker of the group. While he is lazy as hell from my notes, he is a genius. So he could be either really easy to get on board, or extremely difficult."

Naruto nodded as all the information sunk in. 'Well that helps. It seems like I will go after the Hyuuga heiress first and let her convince her cousin along with the branch house. Unless pinky proves me wrong from yesterday, I'll just let her rot. The trio seems to be the difficult one as I know they will work as a team and catching them alone will be quite difficult. I better scout out their likes when they get here. Hey wait, the girl likes Sasuke, check one.'

"Alright, thanks for the info Kabuto-san."

Kabuto nodded and headed back to his team, just in time as other teams began flooding into the room. Naruto could only shake his head as practically no one decided to show up before hand. Then again, maybe no one expect the first test to really be anything big. He could only scoff at that since most first test were to eliminate as many of the want'a'bees from the competition, especially if they were going to have a tournament at the end.

Shaking that thought from his head, he looked at everyone that had entered the room and was so far unimpressed. He had noticed some of his targets, mainly the two Hyuuga's and the Ino-Shika-Cho, but it seemed like he wasn't the only one recognizing people.

He had noted that the Inuzaku heir, Kiba, had noted him and was growling up a storm along with his small partner. A small smirk crossed his face as he thought of a good way to scare at least one of them as he flared a small amount of youki so that it would go unnoticed to almost everyone except for all those extremely sensitive to it and changed his eyes to his Inu red and emerald before flashing back to the cold blue.

In an instant, the dog began whimpering in fear as it hid into Kiba's hood as Kiba looked confused while angry. Naruto smirked as he saw this and reverted his eyes back to their electric blues as both Gaara and Yugito looked at him in questioning. Shrugging uncaringly at them as he lazily pointed towards the general direction of Kiba and they both understood.

As the time began to near ten, Naruto could sense Kabuto's impatience growing as Sasuke seemed to be a no show. Within minutes of the deadline for arrive; Sasuke arrived with his two teammates flanking his sides. In an instant, the blonde haired Yamanaka was besides the Uchiha looking at him with hearts in her eyes while almost everyone else of the rookie Konoha gennin rolled their eyes before talking lightly to each other.

Naruto had to refrain from laughing as they were bringing almost all the attention on them and drawing it away from each other.

Taking his chance, Kabuto approached them while shaking his head. "You know, you rookies should be quiet. You're drawing all the attention to yourselves." Instantly all of them stopped talking and noticed that they had indeed drawn almost everyone's attention along with their ire and killing intent.

Kabuto chucked lightly at them as he readjusted his glasses. "Not to worry, we all were rookies once. If there is anything you need to know about the exams or the contestants within it, I'm here to help."

"Well if you know so much about it, why are you still here?" Kiba spoke firmly while refraining from growling at the white haired imposter as he knew nothing about this exam and every bit would help.

Kabuto smirked at the Inuzaku heir before shaking his head and readjusting his glasses once more as they just didn't seem to want to stay on. "I know so much because I've taken this test six time making this my seventh. And before you start thinking I'm weak, these test are extremely tough and only the best of the best get promoted and even then sometimes none get promoted."

His smirk grew seeing their shocked faces as he pulled out what seemed to be a pile of index cards. "These here have everything I've gathered from the last six tests I took along with all the gennin in this year’s test that I got from a friend that checks the backgrounds for each person that comes into Konoha."

In an instant, Sasuke's attention was caught and he moved to the front of the group and was looking Kabuto dead in the eyes. "If that's true, I would like information on the blonde with the blades."

An almost cruel like smirk graced Kabuto's lips as he heard this and pulled out the very first card on the list. "My, my. You must be interested in death. I had my friend order the danger threat from most to least."

At this Sakura paled as she looked over at Naruto and rubbed her neck feeling lucky that he spared her before while Kiba's eyes narrowed. "Well, let's see what we got here. His name is Namikaze Ryuu Naruto and apparently is the son of Ryuu Akira and... the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato." Kabuto looked shocked at the end, but he was just playing out his part.

The reaction of the nine gennin, along with everyone else listening in was shock, including the real Oto gennin who were glancing at the stoic Naruto as he looked straight ahead. Kiba's anger grew even more as he refrained from growling out loud as he was trained by his mother and sister that he would go by the name but it would be false.

Sasuke's along with the rest of Konoha gennin except Kiba in the room while couldn't believe that the child of the Yondaime would be part of another village. Sakura was the first to voice this. "Wait, why would the son of the man that save us from Kyuubi be part of another village and not here?"

Kabuto shrugged as he looked over at the card while still pretending to be shocked. "It seems he was forced out for some reason so I don't know. Anyways, he's pretty much a mystery other then his mission record, which is something much jounin would be envious of. He has completed three S-Rank, seventeen A-Rank and six B-Rank."

"He is rumored to be a SS-rank threat in Sunagakure and Kumogakure no Sato and is also rumored to be the vigilante known as the Vampire. Little known interesting fact about the Vampire is that he seems to enjoy ripping out the heart of his victim and feasting on it in front of their dying eyes."

Sakura's face was devoid of all color as he had threatened to do the same to her and was instinctively moving behind Sasuke to use him as a shield if he decided to hold out his threat. Everyone along with Kiba and excluding Sasuke were on the now hearing this and began to fear Naruto and the malevolent energy flowing off him wasn't helping any.

Sasuke on the other hand was not worried about that for the moment and was wondering even more about what Naruto had told him. 'How can he help me? Wait, did one of those S-rank missions end up dealing with aniki or tou-san? If so, maybe he can tell me...'

His thought was cut off when a puff of smoke erupted at the front of the room along with a loud, ominous voice with it. "SHUT UP NOW!"

Instantly everyone was quite and stopped moving except for Naruto, who was already walking towards the smoke as he noticed what the scarred man with a bandana on his head holding what seemed to be a box filled with small slips of paper. The said man noticed him moving up, but didn't pay him any head as he continued on. "Alright, now my name is Morino Ibiki and I'll be your first examiner today. So everyone come up and pull out a number and sit in that chair."

Everyone slowly stood up, not really sensing any urgency out of it when Ibiki smirked lightly. "Oh yes, if you don't get one in the next two minutes and sit down you instantly fail the test."

Panic ensued soon as he finished and everyone rushed to get their sheets of paper as Naruto hand five other slips to Gaara, Yugito and the sound three who promptly sat down at their assigned chairs.

Once everyone was seated and the ones that failed to do so were thrown out, Ibiki looked over all the potential gennin when his chunin assistances began passing out a sheet of paper to everyone. As they where doing so, Naruto looked over at his two neighbors. On his left was a teen that had to be at least four to five years older then himself with a higher chakra capacity then most in the room, alerting him to the fact that he was probably one of the under cover chunin.

Putting that thought to the side for now, he turned to his right to notice one of his targets in Hyuuga Hinata.

She was wearing a loose black shirt with a small opening on the top of it revealing her mesh shirt underneath it. Her pants were also black and where tapped at the knee and the ankles. Her dull lavender eyes with no iris held no warmth within them, only anger, hatred, pain and sorrow. Her navy blue hair was longer then what the picture showed as it reached down to her shoulder blades and was straight with no spikes in the back of it. Even though she was only twelve, her hardened face gave her the look of being fifteen if not older.

Before he could think on it further, Ibiki's voice reached his ear as he instantly looked forward at the scarred jounin. "Alright, now that everything is ready, I will go over this with you once and only once. If you ask me or anyone of my associates, you fail."

The already silent room became deafly silent as people stopped breathing as Ibiki continued on. "Alright, these are the rules for the test. Anyone caught breaking them will fail. My first and most important of my rules is if you fail, your entire team fails.”

If the room hadn't been already silent it was now as everyone with the exceptions being Naruto, Gaara and Yugito had practically stopped breathing. "The second one is that you have forty-five minutes to complete this test and will stop working. If you do not finish within the allotted time, you fail. Once the forty-five minutes is up, I will give your tenth question. Now, since there is ten questions that means the max score you can make is a ten, so everyone will start out with ten points. If you have no points after the grading, you obviously fail."

The room was slowly becoming louder as people began breathing out in relief as Ibiki seemed to have stopped talking before suddenly holding their breathes once more as he continued on. "And finally, the final rule for this test. If you are caught cheating, you will be deducted two points. If you are caught cheating three times, you will be thrown out with your team and all of you fail."

"You may begin."

In a shuffle of movement, everyone flipped their papers over and began trying to answer the questions. Naruto couldn't help but smirk as he knew the answers for it, but he wasn't interested in doing this test fairly as there was no challenge in it, not that there was much of a challenge in cheating.

From the corner of his eyes he noticed that Gaara had already used his eye of sand to copy a disguised chunin while Yugito was sitting by the said chunin, gripping his hand tightly underneath the table, slowly snapping the bones in it as he was forced to give her the answers. He refrained from chuckling at the scene as it was just her style to do what she was.

Looking down at his test, he shook his head as he closed his eyes and began focusing on his aura vision, but taking it far beyond what Rayne had taught him. Focusing his mental focus on the chunin, Naruto forced his spirit and will upon the unsuspecting male.

After a brief and one-sided struggle for control, Naruto's will took control of his mind and body and began writing the answers down slowly to pass some time while channeling them to Naruto, who in turn began writing them himself. Once he was finished, he relinquished control on the chunin, who looked around the room confused as to what happened.

Still finding himself with plenty of time to burn, he quickly used Stop Time. The room froze as he stood up and stretched lightly before walking through the room, checking on all his targets and making sure they were getting their answers.

As he was walking, he noticed something strange about one of the Kusa gennin. Walking over to him, Naruto looked closely at him and was fairly surprised to see that the eye was still working even though the rest of his body was frozen. Looking at the eye closer, Naruto began to notice the key details of the eye, seemingly like Beliar's eye that took place of Rayne's left eye nearly four hundred years ago.

Thinking it to be a coincidence, he stopped staring as he headed back to his seat before pulling out a walkman CD player and put in his head pieces before allowing time to start once more. Within seconds everyone was looking at him as he was nodding his head to a band from one of the eras Rayne lived through.

He ignored their glares and staring, he mouthed the words much to their annoyance and pissing off almost all of the examiners, except for Ibiki who was biting his lip to keep from laughing at the event as he eliminated a few teams just for looking at him as he purposely kept his test visible.

But it seemed one of the chunin examiners didn't like the distraction and threw a stray kunai towards him, purposely being slightly off target from the guy cheating behind him. Naruto on pure instinct caught the kunai with his finger catching the ring and stopping it from moving any further before he began twirling it around on his finger while lip syncing with the song playing.

As the chunin was stunned at this, Naruto flipped the kunai into the air before catching it once more, blade first and crushed it with absolute ease before he tossed it to guy behind him, accidentally knocking the poor kid out. While everyone was in shock, Gaara could only shake his head as he waited for the others to finish while Yugito mumbled something about show off as she snapped a few bones in the chunin’s to get his attention.

After a few more agonizing minutes, Ibiki called time just as Naruto shut off his walkman. Shaking his head as he wondered how he did it, Ibiki looked all over the room before glaring at all that managed to make it through the exam so far as it was nearly three times the normal. But it wouldn't matter as his plan would easily cut their numbers drastically.

Grinning to himself mentally, he looked at everyone in the room one last time before speaking in his usual menacing voice. "Alright maggots, time up."

Everyone began putting down their pencils and looked at the scarred jounin nervously, some knowing that they had failed already while others hoping the last question wasn't too hard and that their teammates wouldn't fail them.

Ibiki smirked lightly as he already knew what mostly everyone was feeling before quickly hiding it as he didn't want anyone to see it. "Good. Now before we move to the final question, there are going to be a few rules for this question. And one of them is if you complain about it, you fail." No one spoke as they reigned in their outburst, not wanting to fail them and their teammates.

"First and the only mandate for this question is that if you don't want to take it, you may leave now." A few snickers escaped from some of the group as mostly everyone there was planning on taking it. "But, if you do take it the first nine questions mean squat as this one will make or break you and it makes this entire test look simple. And if you fail, I will personally band you from ever competing in another chunin exam again. If you leave, it will not be counted against you and you may take it again.

"Now, you will have ten minutes to choose whether you will stay and risk the possibility of failing and never becoming a chunin or leave and have a chance to advance at the next possible exams."

A few dozen pencils dropping could be heard as the room became deathly silent. Naruto refrained from snickering as he knew that the man was bluffing, but was very convincing as he was placing a small amount killer intent laced with his words and his eyes as he looked over the room. If he was one of the other gennin in this room, he would have been scared as well, but he by no means was one of them and normal so it didn't even faze him in the slightest. His mental laughter began growing louder and harder to repress as more and more began leaving with their grumbling and glaring teammates.

Looking over at Gaara and Yugito, he could tell that they were doing well and weren't even fazed as well as Dosu. Zaku seemed to be nervous but relieved at the same time, probably because he bombed the first part and was getting a second chance while being nervous due to that he might never become a chunin.

Looking over at his last teammate, he was slightly surprised to see her looking like a down right wreck as she twitched and fidgeted in her chair, obviously being affected by Ibiki's words and killing intent.

He thought about using Stop Time to calm her down, but he could only use that for himself. Another was that he could get up and say something stupid while giving everyone confidence around him. Finally, a wicked idea popped in his head as he looked over the leaving gennin as he sprang one of his blades in place and slammed it into the desk in front of him catching everyone's attention as they looked over towards him.

In an instant they wished as the air began oozing with killer intent coming from the blonde with red and blue streaks. "Will we get on with this? I grow bored and contemplating on how to kill my examiners and fellow competitors while passing the tests."

As he finished, he pulled out his blade from the desk and pulled it back. Nothing happened for a moment before he placed his fingers on the side of the desk and pushed in opposite directions and the desk moved with him revealing he had split it by contact alone. Looking around the room he noticed that almost everyone around him was having hard time breathing and sighed out loud as he over did it with his killing intent and cut it off.

Mostly everyone began to recover as his gaze landed on Ibiki before checking back on Kin, who seemed to be recovering as well, but her fear seemed to have left her seeing what Naruto did.

Soon after another quarter of the room left for one reason or another while Ibiki could only smirk at Naruto as he helped out a teammate while intimidating everyone around him, including himself. Shaking that off, he looked over everyone left with a stoic face. "This is you last chance to leave."

A few more stood up and left as they couldn't take the pressure any longer. Seeing that no one else was going to leave and the door was close, Ibiki spoke once more. "Fine, all of you in this room... pass. Congratulations." A slight smile appeared on his face as he said this while everyone in the room looked confused.

Shaking his head at them, he decided to answer all the questions being thrown at him. "This test had dual purpose as many of you should have figured out by now or are just about to. The first is to test you decision making abilities, hence the rule on the final question. Both choices are bad, but both with a silver lining."

"Thoses that chose to continue proved they have the courage to make decisions chunin make, except for one exception. Sometimes the choices end in death. Even the best of us make mistakes at time, but shinobi have to be near perfect if they wish to survive. The second purpose was to test your espionage abilities as it quite important to be able to observe a target without you being spotted. Now make no mistakes, some of your attempts were pitiful, but just good enough to be acceptable."

"Now as much as I would like to continue on, your next examiner should be here soon. Ah, here she is." As soon as Ibiki said that, the door opened to reveal a feral looking woman with long brown hair in a pony tail that reached her back. She had two triangle marks on her cheeks, cold, brown eyes that seemed to freeze over anything they looked at, a modest sized bust and three dogs following behind her. "Meet your second examiner, Inuzaku Hana."

Naruto's eyes widened as memories of his child hood began flooding him as he looked over at the girl. His blood boiled hotter and hotter, becoming harder to control as his vampiric instincts urged him to drain her dry while his demonic instincts sought revenge on her for what she did to him. And to add more to the fire, Dark was urging it on as well while trying to add his own energy to Naruto.

The only thing to keep him from attacking her was his will alone, and that was crumbling. Before he could act, she spoke in a cold and indifferent tone. "Everyone meet me at training ground forty-four in twenty minutes."

With that said she turned around walked out of the room, leaving a steaming Naruto as he reigned in all his emotions and control over his body as he was beginning to release his killing intent once more. But this time both Gaara and Yugito were at his side, trying to figure out what was going on. Before they could say anything, Naruto stood up with an aura of malice around him, but under control. "Don't bother with it. Now let's go and get this over with."

Both Gaara and Yugito looked at each other confused before running up to catch him with the sound three.

---------------------------

In front of a dark forest with a fence around it, Naruto was leaning up against the said fence as both Gaara and Yugito looked at him worriedly with a hint of curiosity. He refrained from growling at them as he repressed all the memories that the female Inuzaku brought him. As he did, he looked both dead in the eyes before calmly speaking. "I do not and will not say anything. Both of you will learn in due time, but it is not now, so let it drop." He spoke forcefully at the end, trying to end the attempted prying into his past.

Yugito shook her head lightly as she sighed out loud as she looked over at him. "As much as I want to let it drop for now, neither of us can. She is obviously affecting you so we need to know what it is so we can help. I can understand not telling the other three, but we are your friends and we can help you as we know what it is like."

Naruto narrowed his eyes lightly at her as Gaara nodded along with her. Neither would desist until he told them, yet he did not want to. So instead, he turned away from them. Yugito growled at him as he did this as Gaara was deliberate on whether to attempt to use his sand on him to try and pry the information out of him when the dual breed spoke. "Do you really wish to know?" Both nodded at him as Yugito crossed her arms around her chest as Gaara glared at him. "Fine, but I will not tell you, but give you something to mull over. Mostly everyone only physically harmed me while some tried to break me mentally. She went out of her way to hurt me in every possible way that she could and enjoyed every second of doing it. Among everyone in this village, I loathe her the most."

The blood drained form Yugito's face while Gaara looked mildly stunned at that. Yugito looked pityingly at Naruto but quickly shook that out of her system as she looked at Naruto as she thought of everything that could be done to a four to five year old. She shivered lightly at the mere thought as it was something she couldn't contemplate as a child was suppose to be free and innocent and even her childhood wasn't all that bad. She would have said something about it but others began to arrive cutting her off from doing so as she had noticed that almost everyone there had their attention on them, more specifically Naruto.

She refrained from growling as mostly all the girls, not including the Konoha kunoichi and Kin were looking at him in a slight daze of aw and even Kin to some extent was as well, though hers was more respect then aw. The others were ticking her off as they seemed to becoming fan girls and the last thing she needed was more competition since Gobi was more then enough for her already. Putting her jealousy aside, she also noted that he had all the Konoha gennins' attention on him as well, mainly because of what Kabuto had said earlier.

Yugito mentally sighed as she really didn't like being the center of attention, but knew this was coming soon as Orochimaru had told Naruto to use his real name. Then again, Naruto seemed to be relishing in it which was quite odd to her but she put it aside for now seeing that Naruto was hard to predict and read. Gaara really didn't look like he cared at all, which was close to the truth although he was getting slightly ticked at the fact they wouldn't stop looking at them.

Naruto began tapping his foot in annoyance as he could sense and see all the proctors setting everything for the exam up, yet they were no closer to completion then they were twenty minutes ago. Soon as he thought that, a poof of smoke erupted in front of most of the gennin revealing Hana and her three dogs. Naruto instantly began reigning in his emotions and killing intent as he knew now wasn't the time. Even so his blood began boiling making it harder to control making it all the more difficult for him to reign in his growing blood lust.

Unaware of the potential danger of Naruto's growing rage, Hana looked over all the gennin with her cold gaze only warming up when she looked over towards Kiba and hardened when she saw Naruto. Turning away from him, her gaze returned to its normal cold glare as she looked over the rest of the gennin before speaking. "Alright, seeing that all of you are here we can begin the second part of the exam which you will be partaking here in training ground forty-four, also known as the forest of Death." Mostly everyone paled at the ominous name except for a few, including Naruto, that smirked hoping the forest would live up to its name.

"In this test, you will be tested on your survival skills along with your team work, stealth, fighting prowess and intelligence gathering." Many raised their eyebrows at this as they were just tested on the last, but continued listening as Hana continued on with her speech as she pulled out a brown and white scroll. "You will be given on of these scrolls from the booths over there. Your task is to collect the opposite scroll, meaning if you have heaven scroll you need to get a earth scroll and vice versa. But these scrolls won't be laid out around in this forest, you will have to take them from other teams by any means necessary."

Most of the gennin nodded at this while a few frowned but continued listening as she wrapped up her speech as she pulled out a stack of papers. "After you get both scrolls, you will head to the tower in this forest. There is a map over at the booths, but you cannot take it with you so you'll have to memorize it and the position of the tower as I will not tell you. Now I need you to sign these forms for liability so your home villages can't complain about us is you die from this point on in the exam. Once you sign them head over to the booths and hand in your papers with the rest of your team to get a scroll and the gate you will be assigned to. And on one last note, if one of you are to die or be incapacitated when you reached the tower, you fail the test."

As she finished she began handing out papers to each of the gennin though she had the last gennin she handed the papers to, which happened to be Hinata to hand the rest to Oto shinobi since Naruto was there. While most of the others found this odd, Naruto was actually grateful as if she had been within arms reach of him, he would have probably lost to his instincts and would have attacked her. Shaking his head, he quickly signed the paper before turning to the sound three. "Alright, you have those kunai I gave you?" All three nodded in confirmation so Naruto could continue. "Good. Now I doubt you'll have to use them, but if you are in a situation you can't get out of, throw them into the ground and I'll be there in a flash."

Remembering what happened in the mourning, all three nodded knowing how fast he could move from the fact he killed the Root Anbu and had given Kin and Zaku the answers during the first exam without anyone seeing him. Naruto nodded back at them before heading over to the booth with the others behind him. Handing his papers to the proctor along with Gaara and Yugito, the proctor pulled out a covered scroll to keep it from being seen. "Your gate is number nine."

Naruto nodded as both Gaara and Yugito attempted to find the map in the said booth, but were unable to as Naruto had already begun to walk off towards their gate. Quickly catching up to him, Yugito gripped his shoulder and growled lightly at him as Gaara gave him his patented glare before speaking. "We need to see the map."

A grin appeared on Naruto's face as he reached into his pouch and pulled out a rolled up parchment. "You mean this map?"

Both refrained from sweat dropping and failed as Naruto grinned not unlike a certain fox before they shook their heads and sighed. After a few moments they were standing at the gate, going over the map. Well Naruto was; both Gaara and Yugito were glaring at him before the latter spoke up. "You know that's kind of cruel. I know you don't like it here, but you know if no one knows where they are going then only we..."

"Incorrect. If you haven't notice there are eight booths meaning there are eight maps. While the bitch was handing out the papers to sign, I stopped time and grabbed all eight maps and secretly put one map in one person's pouch of the seven teams I want to pass which in turn are some of our targets and will help make the tournament at the end interesting." Naruto interrupted as he rolled up the map and threw it towards Yugito, who in turn stared at him.

"Well, are you going to tell us which teams you gave the maps?"

"Nosey are we?" Naruto grinned as Yugito glared at him with killing intent leaking out while Gaara looked semi amused and pissed at the same time making Naruto's grin widen. "Well I guess I'll tell you two. I obviously gave one map to the others sound team. I also gave one to four Konoha teams with our targets on them. Now as for the other two I gave one to Kabuto's team as we know they will pass anyways. Finally, I gave one to the Kusagakure team."

Both Gaara and Yugito raised their eyebrows at the last team and the sand user was the first one to openly question him. "Why exactly the grass team?"

Shaking his head lightly at both of them, the dual breed began to inspect his blades before answering them. "There is something weird about the one with two different eyes. That one eye of his... can follow me while using Stop Time. Only Kyuubi and Rayne-kaa-san can actually see me while using it and even she has difficulties without using Beliar's eye. So seeing that his eye was following me in the first exam, I believe it to be the other eye of Beliar."

As he said this, both their eyes widened in surprise and Yugito quickly spoke. "If you are sure it's the eye of Beliar we need to take it out of him right away..."

"Yugito, have you forgotten what happens when you are handling one of the pieces of Beliar?" Naruto interrupted her again. Yugito flinched lightly as she knew all too well what would happen having seen someone handling one before it violently replaced the corresponding part in the handler's body. Naruto nodded lightly at her. "Good, now you know we don't have anything on hand to remove it without it replacing one of our eyes. The only bright side is the damn things are indestructible so we don't have to worry about damaging them."

Both nodded lightly as Yugito rolled out the map and began to look at it before handing it to Gaara. Once he had finished looking over it and pocketed it, the three waited for their gate to open. Fortunately they didn't have to wait to long as all the teams were at their gates ready to go, though slightly miffed at not knowing where the tower was. As everyone was finished gearing up for the start of the exam, Hana's voice was heard over the intercom. "Gatekeepers, open the gates and initiate the second exam."

As her voice faded away, the gate slid open and Naruto walked into the forest closely followed by Gaara and Yugito. After a few moments, they took to the trees and began hopping tree as Naruto activated his Aura Vision to search for a target. Looking around for a few moments, Naruto motioned them closer as he pointed out an Amegakure team in the distance. Jumping closer to them, each of them noticed their umbrellas. Understanding why the used them, the three looked at each other, trying to stare the other two down as all three of them spoke in unison.

"I want them."

Blinking at each other in confusion before shaking it off, Yugito held out her fist. "Jenken."

A smirk graced Naruto's lips as he nodded and held out his fist thinking this was in the bag. Unfortunately Gaara noticed this and frowned. "Without using powers."

Yugito nodded in agreement making Naruto frown and pout. Having both of them glare at him, he dropped the act as he nodded once more and agreed with the stipulation. Seeing him agree, Gaara moved his hand forward before the three went through the motions before throwing out their choice. As they looked at their choices, both Naruto and Yugito frowned at their flat hands as Gaara had his in the shape of scissors. Gaara shrugged uncaringly though mentally chibi Gaara was jumping in glee.

Gaara shook that image out of his head as it was unbefitting of him as he stood up and disappeared in a swirl of sand only to appear behind the three unsuspecting Ame gennin. He questioned if the three were actually gennin as they seemed a few years older then Yugito. Not really caring about their age, Gaara's sand began to pour out of his gourd as the three realized someone was behind them and whirled around to face them only to see the sand jinchuuriki. He refrained from growling in annoyance as the three let up their guard slightly not thinking he was great enough of a threat to warrant their full attention. He would make them pay for that.

The leader of the three Ame gennin stepped up with both his other teammates flanking his side. As they did so, both Naruto and Yugito appeared besides Gaara, flanking him as well since they weren't going to do the fighting. The Ame team looked slightly frightened seeing the blonde boy making Naruto smirk while Gaara frowned even more. Sensing this, Naruto leaned up against a nearby tree and crossed his arms over his chest while looking over at the Ame team. "Hn. You needn't worry about me. He's your opponent, not me. Besides, do you honestly think you are worth my time?"

Seeing them being irked by his comment, Yugito nodded in agreement as she placed her hand on her hip and grinned at the three making their anger increase even further. "I have to agree. They don't seem to be worth or time. Hell, I don't even think they are worth Gaara's time either. Maybe we should leave since there are bound to be stronger teams to fight."

Gaara was beginning to get pissed at their interference when he noticed the blood lust and killing intent coming of the three Ame shinobi. A small smirk graced his lips as he noticed their leader grabbing his two umbrellas as his face was twitching in rage. Seeing this, Gaara nodded in agreement and was about to turn around when the leader yelled at them in fury. "NEVER TURN YOU BACK ON AN ENEMY!"

With a quick thrust of his arms, his two umbrellas were open and thrown into the air with more velocity then needed as Gaara slowly turned back and coldly gazed at him while his sand began swirling around him. Seeing this made the leader smirk as his umbrellas began spinning wildly. "Ha! That feeble sand of yours won't be able to stop this! Die you bastards!"

Thousands of senbon rained down upon Gaara spinning completely around him as they seeked their target before all flying towards him like miniature missiles. And an explosion of sand erupted on impact covering the area Gaara was standing. The leader smirked in victory as he turned to Naruto and Yugito only to see them completely unfazed and rather bored. His anger grew by two fold believing they weren't taking him seriously and was started to command his umbrella rain down his senbon on them.

"Is that all?"

His eyes widened in horror as he rapidly turned back to were Gaara was to see the sand and dust cloud settle down to see Gaara unharmed. His blood drained as he noticed an incomplete sphere of sand surrounding the Ichibi vessel with his senbon piercing almost every square inch of it yet they hadn't even made it a centimeter in the inch thick sand barrier. Not believing what he had seen, he commanded his umbrellas to shoot every last senbon at him in hope it would pierce his barrier. In response, Gaara summoned more sand and blocked each senbon that flew towards him with the utmost ease.

The Ame gennin's horror drastically grew seeing this as Gaara glared viciously at them. He already disliked being thought less of, but calling his sand feeble was crossing the line. He prided himself in his sand and his ability to control it with and without Shukaku's help. He had finally gotten it to the point that he could block attacks subconsciously with his sand alone near the level Shukaku did for him, but he still occasionally used the tanuki for help especially if he had to concentrate on the battle. So by disrespecting his sand was directly disrespecting him and no one messed with Sabaku no Gaara and got away with it.

As the senbon halted, Gaara's sand lashed out towards the unsuspecting leader and quickly wrapped around him like a cocoon as he slowly brought one of his hands forward while extending his other arm and caught a falling umbrella. Placing the umbrella over him as if to stop rain, Gaara smirked slightly as he clenched his fist tightly almost driving his nails into his skin. The Ame gennin screamed for only a few second the sand completely crushed his body while his blood shot out in every direction, drenching everything in its path.

The ex Ame nin's teammates screamed and yelled in horror as they tried to run, but the sand quickly caught them and wrapped around them so they had no way to escape. Gaara glanced at the coldly as he extended his hand forward once more to their fright when he felt his wrist being gripped to see Yugito besides him. "Stop, they've had enough." Looking into her eyes before looking over towards Naruto on his right and seeing the look on his face nodded as he released the two from their sand. Seeing he had released them, Yugito walked forward and grabbed their jackets and hauled them up. "Alright, now give us your scroll."

The one in her left hand nodded as he pulled out heaven scroll and dropped it on the ground. Yugito let the two of them go and picked up as the two scampered away from the area in a panic. Examining it for a second to make sure it was a real one, she tossed it over to Naruto who in turned pulled out their covered scroll as he hadn't deemed it important enough to look at yet and uncovered it to reveal it was an earth scroll. Nodding lightly as he pocketed them into his pouch, Naruto looked over to Gaara. "That was kind of vicious, even for you. Try and keep contro of yourself and never attack those that don't need to be."

Gaara nodded lightly as he had lost control over himself again but had been getting better at controlling himself of lately. Nodding back at him, Naruto turned over to Yugito before narrowing his eyes as he turned to the bushes as his blades sprang to life. "Enjoy the show now did we?"

Before either could figure out what Naruto meant by that, he had appeared by the bushes and swung his arms forward, slamming both Kiba and Shino into a tree with their jacket collars caught by the blades. Both of their eyes had widened at this as Hinata looked stunned before she activated her Byukugan, only to find an arm wrapped around her neck and waist tightly while sand gripped both of her arms. She mentally cursed as the blonde haired girl had managed to use her blind spot to get behind her and not being able to notice the sand around her earlier.

Naruto smirked lightly at the fear on their faces before frowning as he noted the Aburame's bugs trying to crawl onto him. Shaking his head as he had though ahead of time and applied bug repellent, he looked at the two before glaring at Kiba. "Mutt, you are lucky I don't kill you right here and now for what your sister did to me. But I'm above killing relatives for revenge so consider yourself extremely lucky. But I will say this, if you try to hunt me down and kill me like your family wants, I will kill you without hesitation. And don't think I can't do it as if you didn't notice the situation, I have you by the balls." He added the last part to keep the arrogance of the Inuzaku from emerging and making him say something stupid that probably would have left him in a mess.

Turning over to the Aburame, who was still trying to get his bugs to climb upon Naruto and drain his chakra even though the kikai would die if they feast on him due to his vampiric nature, he pressed him tightly against the tree. "Now you, aren't you suppose to use your logic? If so, why do you follow your clan blindly when you know they are heading down the wrong path? Just look at what has happened in the last couple of years and you will understand why it's not very logical. Now if you ask me it is very dumb, but I'm not an Aburame so I won't complain." Both looked at him in confusion as his words began to absorb into them when Naruto continued now looking at both of them. "Now that I have you thinking, I'll be leaving you alone, but first..."

With a quick snap of his blades he grabbed their faces and smashed their heads into the tree knocking them out cold. As they slid to the ground, Naruto reached into Kiba's jacket and pulled out a shivering Akamaru. He tilted his head at him before growling lightly as if talking to him. In response, Akamaru yipped a few times and Naruto nodded before growling something else as he placed the small dog back on its partner. Turning away from the pup, his gaze turned on the former Hyuuga heiress before to Gaara and Yugito. "Release her. We have a few things that need to be discussed."

Both nodded knowing this already released her before sitting her down on a chair of sand Gaara had created. The said Hyuuga looked at all of them in confusion but knew for a strange reason she wasn't in danger so she deactivated her Byukugan. Gazing at them cautiously, Hinata turned to Naruto. "What do we need to discuss? We have never met to my knowledge so if we could make this quick because unlike you, we still have to get our other scroll."

Naruto raised his eyebrow as no one had ever talked to him like that as Gaara refrained from snickering while Yugito mouthed touché. Shaking his head of her tone and attitude towards him, Naruto feigned innocence. "Oh, poor princess. I reassure you that we won't be wasting your time. And how can you not remember me? We used to play with each other in the park until your father nearly killed me for being near you." The last part he said in a sickenly sweet voice that made everyone there flinch.

Hinata's eyes widened in recognition as a touch of her past self surfaced. Naruto mentally smirked as he saw this and was already liking what he saw as she spoke weakly. "T-that was you? B-but you look so d-different?" Suddenly her cold exterior returned as she clenched her fist tightly. "So it was my father that forced you to leave. I should have known that cold hearted fuck would do that. Ha! I bet he got it when he forced you out seeing who you are."

A soft sigh escaped Naruto making Hinata looked up at him in confusion. Shaking his head, Naruto looked down at the female Hyuuga. "So you don't know why or how I was 'chased' out of the village."

"No, I know why you were chased out. You were the child the Yondaime sealed Kyuubi into therefore Kyuubi." Naruto narrowed his eyes hearing this, not liking the fact that soon as he left they told the younger generations of his former burden. Before he could respond, Hinata continued on. "If you ask me it's a load of crap. Sure, you may have the fox sealed within you but that doesn't mean you are it. Hell if you were Kyuubi you would have killed any of the villagers that treated you badly. Anyways, to answer your second question, I do not know how you were chased out of the village."

Naruto nodded lightly as a light smile crossed his face already liking the girl more and more before his face dropped as he remembered the events of the day Rayne, Kyuubi and Itachi took him from the village. Sighing lightly as he leaned deeper into the tree, Naruto looked over at the Hyuuga. "It's simple. The villagers nearly killed me. In fact, they should have succeeded by all means." Hinata paled as her old self tried to pry its why back out as Naruto continued. "If it wasn't for Rayne-kaa-san killing all of them, feeding me some of her blood to become dhampir and Kyuubi turning the rest of my human side demon I would have died that day. Hell, even Itachi killed those two Anbu and his best friend to protect me that night. After they saved me and left the village, all three took me under their wings."

Once he finished, Hinata was battling her old self and was struggling to maintain control. Just barely reining it in, Hinata gritted her teeth and closed her eyes in an attempt to control herself. Once she did, she opened her eyes and looked straight at Naruto. "I see. I would leave under those circumstances myself... Screw that. I want to leave this forsaken village now! Is there a way you can take me with you?"

Yugito refrained from growling out loud as she instinctively felt threatened by the blue hair girl. Oddly enough she was beginning to understand what Gobi went through everyday when she was so close to Naruto. Noticing this, Naruto smiled lightly at her before turning to Hinata. "Sorry, but no." Hinata narrowed her eyes at this and was about to get up and leave when Naruto continued on. "But, I have something much better." Her interested suddenly spiked as she looked at Naruto expectantly earning her a grin. "You see, Oto is planning an attack on Konoha, but not to destroy it. Only to liberate it and return Konoha to its past glory. All three sannin are leading the assault along with Rayne-kaa-san."

Hinata's eyes widened as far as they could before they returned to normal as a wicked smirk crossed graced her lips as she looked Naruto dead in the eyes. "So how can I help?"

Naruto couldn't help but smirk back at her as he leaned off the tree and began stretching his arms out. "All I need you to do is to convince the branch house to join in our struggle. In return, Jiraiya and Orochimaru will remove the cage bird." Hinata smirked and quickly nodded in agreement as she had been recently sleeping in the branch house's section of the Hyuuga complex, which was only a quarter of the size of the main branch. Naruto seeing her agree offered her his hand to help her up. "But remember to keep this secret so only tell those you trust within the branch house so they can spread the news as they will know who are the main branch lap dogs better then you do."

The female Hyuuga nodded as she took Naruto's hand and stood up and stretched lightly. "I will. And I guess you should be leaving now. It seems they are about to get up." She pointed to both Kiba and Shino who indeed were being to stir.

Seeing this Naruto, nodded lightly as he handed her a Hiraishin kunai. "If you need my help, throw that into the ground and I'll come."

With that he along with Gaara and Yugito disappeared into thin air as both Kiba and Shino slowly began to awaken. Hinata could only smirk as she pocketed the kunai in her pouch as she walked over to her two teammates. Finally she could get back at her father.

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Naruto sighed as they were waiting nearby the tower, picking off any teams that accidentally found themselves at the tower. A day had pass and not a single team he had planted a map on had made it to the tower. Hell, he couldn't even see any of the teams with his Aura Vision meaning they were at least a mile away from him at best. The only bright side of the wait for them was that they had picked up five scrolls, three of which were heaven and the other two were earth. He honestly didn't know what to do with them all, but it was better then allowing teams he didn't want to enter the tower.

Shaking his head of that thought, he turned to the sleeping form of Yugito and smiled lightly at her. He examined her for a few moments before catching what he was doing and turning away with a small blush as Gaara raised his eyebrow at him. Ignoring the red head, who was mentally planning on using his sand sphere to entrap the two until they admitted they liked each other, Naruto looked around the nearby forest with his Aura Vision and sighed. Not a single soul was close other then the teams they had already took a scroll from.

Getting more restless then before, Naruto snapped his blades into place and began expecting them once more in a mediocre attempt to hide his boredom. Of course Gaara already could see this quite easily but chose not to say anything. The sand jinchuuriki wouldn't admit it, but he actually liked listening to the sounds of the forest as it soothed him, though not as much as a full moon. Then again, he noted the blonde actually never was really truly calm unless he was in battle or with either Gobi or Yugito. It was quite odd to him, but at the same time it made sense as he knew the blonde dual breed's to halves were almost always constantly and pointlessly warring with each other.

Shaking his head, he was wondering if he should make a cottage of sand when Naruto jumped up and began scanning around for something. The red head blink in confusion before he noticed the blonde fingering his pouch and understood that one of the sound three had to have thrown the Hiraishin kunai. "Go ahead. I'll look over Yugito while you're gone."

Naruto nodded in confirmation before he used Stop Time and rushed towards the kunai marker as nothing but an extremely thin line of black and red light that was almost unnoticeable by even the best shinobi. Rushing through the rather large forest, Naruto turned left as he followed the resonating pulse of the kunai before he jumped into a clearing with the sound three badly beaten down. But he couldn't blame them as they seemed to have been ambushed by the other three Konoha teams. Appearing by the kunai, which Kin had thrown, he deactivated Stop Time and appeared in front of the sound three.

Everyone stopped and looked on in shock at the blonde haired dual breed, but none more so then the sound three themselves. While both Kin and Zaku were grateful beyond all measures that he came, Dosu was kind of upset but wouldn't allow his pride to screw him over as he knew he wasn't a match for nine skillful gennin and knew deep down that the blonde was.

Turning back to the three Oto gennin, Naruto shook his head before pulling Dosu up before he reached into his pouch and handed him both a heaven and earth scroll. The bandaged sound gennin blinked in confusion as Naruto turned around and faced the nine gennin. "Those are two spares we got. Now head for the tower. I'll catch up to you in a few minutes; I have some business to attend to here."

Dosu looked at Naruto for a second before shaking his head knowing he could handle the situation as he walked over to Kin and Zaku and helped them up and began heading towards the tower. Once they were out of the area, flipped his blades to rest as he stretched out as he didn't want to kill any of them. Soon as he finished stretching, he slid into his battle ready stance as a grin graced his lips. "Finally, a decent work out. Hopefully none of you will disappoint me. Especially you Uchiha, I've been waiting for a chance to see what you can do."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at this as he slowly slid into the Uchiha's basic stance when he heard Neji snort and step forward. He narrowed his eyes further as he didn't want to be interrupted, but let him do so as Naruto just seemed amused. "Do you honestly think you can beat all of us? You may be the Yondaime's son, but you are nothing compared to us or him."

Naruto's coy grin never left his face as he turned towards the branch house prodigy and tilted his head towards him. "You're right, I'm nothing compared to tou-san." Neji looked slightly surprised as he didn't expect Naruto to admit it. Naruto's grin widened even further seeing this before his face turned deadly serious. "I'm even stronger then him."

Before Neji could look further surprised Naruto was on him and landed a somersault kick to his chin, sending the Hyuuga prodigy levitating into the air. Naruto quickly flipped in mid air and thrusted his palm into Neji's chest sending him flying into the bushes faster then anyone except for Naruto could see. As the others slowly caught what happened, Naruto's coy grin returned in full force as he returned to his battle ready stance. "Now, shall we begin?"

Lee not being one to say no to a challenge quickly rushed towards Naruto. Naruto quickly ducked under and sweep kicked him before gripping his leg and throwing him at Shikamaru, who had tried to use his clan's special technique on him. The lazy genius didn't have the time to dodge and took the full force of Lee crashing into him.

Chouji jumped forward using his Bubun Baiki no Jutsu and grabbed Naruto as he jumped back up as Ino went through the hand seals for Shintenshin. Naruto purposely allowed her to finish the seals and used his Aura Vision to track her soul heading for his. Seeing the slow movement of her soul, Naruto mentally sighed as he easily broke free of Chouji's grip before gripping his elongated arms and using him as a bat as he smashed the paint tiger heading towards him before throwing Chouji into the young root Anbu.

Turning around, he noted that Ino's soul was near him and jumped up to avoid it when a barrage of kunai, shuriken, senbon and other weapons he couldn't name rained down on him from every single direction. A small smirk graced his lips as he noted Tenten had thrown each of them at him and had attached wires to them. Even though the weapons wouldn't hurt him all too much, he wasn't going to humor her into thinking she could hit him. As the weapons were about to make contact, he disappeared in a flash of red and black light and appeared directly behind the stunned weapons mistress. With a quick chop to the neck, she was out of the battle.

Naruto back flipped over the charging Sasuke making the Uchiha stumble before he quickly turned around only to meet a foot to his face courtesy of Naruto. Not having a second to rest, Naruto bent backwards as he dodged Lee's fist before grabbing it and slamming the weighted taijutsu user down on top of Sasuke like a hammer. Naruto spun around and backhanded Neji as he reappeared onto the battle field and sent him stumbling back. Naruto was about to charge and take him out of the fight right then and there when he barely avoided a fist that connected to the tree right besides him and snapped it like a twig.

Back flipping a few times, Naruto looked mildly stunned that it was Sakura that had thrown the punch before narrowing his eyes as he knew that technique belong to Tsunade meaning the council managed to get the secret on how to use it out of her, or possibly Shizune as the latter was easier to bully around. Before he could think on it further, he tried to move but found himself unable to. Looking down he noticed a shadow holding him down as Shikamaru forming a rat seal. He narrowed his eyes lightly at this before he noticed Chouji using Baika no Jutsu and began rolling towards him like a steam truck.

Just like with Tenten, Naruto wasn't going to humor them as with a quick blast of youki he had broken free of Shikamaru's shadow, sending the shadow user stumbling back before bring his fist back and slamming it into Chouji's spinning form. The large shinobi never stood a chance as he was rocketed back and rammed into awakening Ino, taking both out of the fight as they slammed into a tree. Once again he quickly spun around and grabbed both Sakura's and Lee's fist before moving with unreal speed as he kicked them in the stomachs and used them as platforms to jump over Neji and Sasuke. As he landed behind them, he chopped Neji's neck taking him out of the battle before backing handing Sasuke into a tree, putting him in a daze.

Taking a quick look around, Naruto disappeared before reappearing in front of Sai as he had almost finished painting what seemed to be the Yondaime. With a quick flip of his one of his blades, he sliced the notebook in half before he struck the painter in his face with a well aimed palm strike, putting him down for the count. Quickly grabbing a few of the stray kunai from Tenten's earlier barrage, he threw them towards Shikamaru and caught him by the clothes and pinned him to a tree. He quickly appeared in front of him and delivered a strong punch to the gut taking the lazy genius out of the fight.

Turning around, he noticed both Lee and Sakura charging him from direct angles. Having enough with Sakura's super strength, Naruto flashed in front of her and landed two palms strikes to her lungs making her double over in pain. With a quick strike to the back of her head, she was out like a light leaving only Lee and Sasuke as the only combatants left. The two really didn't look to eager to continue fighting as Naruto didn't even look tired and he had successfully knocked the other seven out without taking any damage. Looking at each other, the two nodded as they slid into their stances and waited for Naruto to make the next move seeing as they had been the aggressors for most of the fight.

Naruto grinned seeing this before he finally noticed Sasuke's fully developed Sharingan. He made a mental note to tell Itachi of this before he flashed behind the two of them much to their surprised. With a mere tap to his shoulder, Naruto had put Lee to sleep before turning to Sasuke. "Well, as much fun as this has been. I best be off." With that said, Naruto turned around and began walking away. Sasuke gritted his teeth at this not liking the fact that he had just been brushed aside like he was nothing and would have charged Naruto when the said boy spoke.

"Sasuke, your brother would be proud of you."

Sasuke's eyes widened hearing this before all the air rushed out his lungs. Looking down, his eyes widened to see Naruto removing his fist from his stomach. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as they returned to their normal state as he crumpled to the ground, out cold.

Shaking his head lightly, Naruto turned back around and headed towards the Oto team so he could lead them to the tower.

---------------------------

Naruto sighed deeply as he looked towards Dosu, Kin and Zaku. Both Gaara and Yugito could only shake their heads as they knew something like this could happen. Leaning up against the wall as he vacantly gazed over the arena; Naruto shook his head as he returned his vision towards the sound three. "So, Orochimaru had told you to test Sasuke to see if he was going to need the seal or if he would come over to us willingly?"

Seeing all three nod, he sighed lightly but understood the reasoning. No one was sure if Sasuke had been swayed by the council or if he was still acting on his free will. If it was the latter, it would be easier to convince them, but it wasn't all that comforting either. Pulling himself off the wall after he dismissed the three with a wave of his hand, he stood up as he heard the door below to the arena open to see Hinata's and Neji's teams enter.

He nodded lightly to Hinata as she looked over towards him and smirked lightly. Seeing Neji's strange look at him, he had figured she told him the plan and now was having a internal conflict with himself, probably due to the fact that he hated the seal on his forehead and that Naruto had soundly defeated him along with eight others a little more then three days ago.

Turning away from them, he looked back over at the sound three. "Hm, seems like we need to start getting ready for the next part of the test. There is only about a few hours left till the deadline." Just as he finished his sentence, the doors opened once more to reveal the Kusa team followed shortly after by Kabuto's team.

Naruto absently wondered what had taken Kabuto so long to get here, but he pushed it aside having a slight idea to what it was. Putting that thought aside, he stretched out before taking a look over at both Gaara and Yugito to see the former standing passively while the latter laid her chest against the bars, waiting for the deadline to arrive as she was getting anxious for a fight. Though she knew that practically no one here could keep up with her in skills, she just wanted to fight someone new as she had only been sparing against Gaara, Itachi and Naruto over the past year.

Quickly catching himself staring at her, Naruto looked away and hid his slight blush, which didn't go unnoticed by Gaara or Itachi as he walked over to them, still in disguise. The said weasel smirked lightly at Naruto glad that he was finally taking interest in girls as he walked besides him as he looked down at the others that had just came in. He noticed Naruto refrain from growling as he noticed Hana next to Kiba, looking extremely unhappy about something. Already figuring what she was pissed about, he turned to Naruto. "So how'd it go in the forest?"

"Alright I guess. I have Hinata on board and we'll have the Hyuuga's branch house with us without a doubt as life without the seal will be too much for them to resist. I also hope I put some doubt into both the Aburame and the Inuzuka heirs. If not, it isn't a huge loss as I'm sure a few will side with us once they learn what's going on. I also had a mini brawl against the rest of the Konoha gennin. It wasn't much of a match, but I was surprised by the pink haired girl's strength. Sasuke is how I suspected him to be, but I doubt if he's as strong as Orochimaru's intelligence said. I put him around an experienced chunin's level maybe a rookie jounin. And guess what."

Itachi looked over at Naruto in questioning as he rarely made him guess, so he was wondering what was up when he noticed the smile on Naruto's face as Sasuke, Sai and Sakura walked into the room. "He already has a fully developed Sharingan, so I doubt they have used any mind control on him as it would shine through his eyes with it activated."

A look of surprise graced Itachi's face before he smiled lightly down towards his brother before covering it up quickly, not wanting to alert Sasuke to his presence. Turning back to Naruto, he nodded lightly. "That's good to hear, but what of the others? Did you have enough time with them or was too quick to get anything in?"

Naruto shook his head as he leaned over the railing as he looked over each of them as they walked into lines as the deadline was approaching. "No, there wasn't enough time during the brawl. But there is no doubt I put doubt in them about there skills and placed another seed into Sasuke. So now we just have to wait and see what he does. As for the others, I'll work on them during the month before the final exam. Besides, I think we're about to have an elimination round for the amount of people we have here." At the end, Naruto was smiling psychotically, oddly enough looking like Rayne.

Itachi shivered, not liking that grin one bit and was glad Orochimaru was walking over to them as Naruto jumped down along with Gaara and Yugito to form their team’s line. As they did so, Orochimaru had reached Itachi and was looking down at the eight teams that had made it. "So I take it Naruto is handling Sasuke along with the others." Seeing Itachi nod, Orochimaru smirked lightly as he leaned slipped his hand into his vest pockets. "Good. I have no doubt he can get mostly all of them to convert to our cause, if he hasn't done so already. But for now, I got some interesting information for you."

Looking over towards the snake sannin, Itachi was somewhat interested before he returned his gaze down towards the twenty-four gennin that had passed the second exam so it looked like they were talking about them. Seeing him look back, Orochimaru continued. "I know for a fact that one of the grass gennin contains at least two pieces of Beliar, if not more. While I'm unsure about the others, I know his off colored eye is Beliar's. And to make matters worse, the Kusakage has made sure to keep him from the spot light so I have no clue of his abilities so he could be extremely dangerous, or just an average shinobi with enhanced powers."

Nodding in understanding, he narrowed his eyes at the said grass gennin wondering the same thing Orochimaru was. "If that's the case, we might just get to see a show case of what he can do in a few moments. If he is dangerous, either Naruto or I will take care of him. If he's just another gennin, we'll take the pieces from him later unless Akatsuki decides to pounce on him here. Now, I think we better stop since it look like they're about to start."

Orochimaru nodded in agreement as his gaze landed on Hana, who was refraining from glaring at Naruto as she had expected him to be eliminated by the second exam. Putting that thought aside for now having digested Kiba's information on what he did to Shino and himself, she began in her usual manner. "Congratulations to all those that have made it here. You have passed the second exam. Now normally we would be telling you about the third exam..."

"Excuse me. Seeing that I'm the third examiner, shouldn't I be explaining this to them Hana?" The dog mistress refrained from growling at the voice as she turned around to see Genma looking at her passively. Seeing that her duties were technically over, she nodded lightly as she moved out of his way as he walked up. Naruto smirked lightly seeing this, glad that she wasn't talking anymore and turned his attention to Genma as he chewed on his senbon. "Alright, as Hana began explaining, we would normally be telling you about the third exam. But seeing the amount of you that made it here, there isn't a way we can move on to the next exam as it is a tournament."

Genma frowned slightly when he heard no outburst as he was hoping for one. Sighing lightly, hating what the council had done to their youth, Genma continued. "As you are all probably wondering, there are too many of you to continue onto the next stage. Therefore we have to hold a preliminary tournament to half your numbers as we do not wish to bore the daimyos with pointless battles. They came to see the best of the best and that is what we will give them. These preliminary battles will be set the same just as if they were in the tournament. Do not hold back against your opponent as these are real shinobi battles and you can kill your opponent if it is necessary, but I will step in if I see fit."

"If someone jumps in for your behalf, you are automatically disqualified. Same goes if you continue attacking after I've already called the match and I am authorized to use deadly force to stop you. If neither you nor your opponent can continue, it is a draw and you are both disqualified. And finally, if you are to leave the arena during the battle you instantly forfeit your chance to compete and are eliminated from preliminaries. If you are to win, you will be in the tournament. Now if there are no questions, anyone that wants to forfeit may do so now. Your team will not be penalized if you do so."

As Genma finished, Kabuto looked like he was going to raise his hand, but looking at everyone that had passed it would make the number uneven and would likely allow someone to get to the next round without having to fight. Also he was curious to how strong Naruto, Gaara and Yugito really were so he wanted to stay and watch especially after hearing that they beat the Sound Four with surprising ease. Not seeing anyone else raising there hand, he kept his down as he looked over towards the disguised Orochimaru, who nodded lightly at him.

Seeing that no one was going to quit, Genma nodded as he handed a list to Hana, who in turn put on a head set and began giving the person on the other end the names of the gennin. Turning back to the awaited gennin, Genma spoke up once more. "We'll, seeing that none of you wish to forfeit and that we have and even number we'll begin the preliminaries. Your names will be randomly selected from the screen over the statue behind me. If you don't feel like fighting the person you selected to fight against, you are allowed to forfeit. Now let the preliminaries begin."

Soon as he said that, the electronic screen began flashing through names faster then mostly everyone could keep up. Naruto with his enhanced vision could see that the names were randomized as no ones name really was coming up more then the others. As the names began to slow down, mostly everyone was either tensing up or becoming slightly jittery wanting there chance to fight as the board finally stopped.

Yamanaka Ino vs. Kinta Dosu

Dosu smirked at the match up as from what he remembered, the blonde hair girl didn't really do much accept for hitting Kin a few times and temporarily taking over Zaku when he was restrained. Ino was slightly annoyed by who she was facing as she knew that on her own, she would have trouble against him. Luckily she was almost at peek condition, though she was a little tired as she hadn't fell asleep in the last seventeen hours. But she had figured out his special ability with the help of Shikamaru, so she dug into her pouch and smirked as she had them.

Genma nodded at the two names before turning back around towards the group of gennin. "Will everyone but Yamanaka Ino and Kinta Dosu clear the arena. There are balconies on both sides so choose which you want to be on. Once a battle starts, you are not to move or change balconies or you will be disqualified and then thrown out of the tower. This includes those of you that know shushin or any other jutsu that can transport you over to the other balcony. All jounin, unless there is an emergency you are not to leave the balconies during the battle either otherwise you will be thrown out of here and put on probation for at least a month by your respective Kage."

Everyone nodded in understanding, not wanting to interrupt the battles anyways. Almost all the Konoha gennin had taken the right balcony except for Kabuto's team, but they weren't really part of the leaf anyways. The only none leaf team that took that side was the grass team. Naruto along with the other sound team took the other side. Mostly because Naruto didn't want to be on that side as he had beaten almost everyone down on that side and there was sure to be anger and resentment aimed towards him for doing just that.

Looking down at the two in the arena, Naruto activated his aura vision before pushing it further and activating a unique ability that Rayne couldn't emulate. He could see their chakra pathways or in the case of vampires and/or demons, their banpaia ryoku and youki. Not only that, he could see the amount of chakra the person had even if they were suppressing it, how they were flowing it and what effects it was bringing out on the users body in battle. He personally called it Energy Sight, which wasn't too far from the truth. True in Aura Vision one could see the amount of chakra in their body as it radiated off the said person, but it was possible to actually see the pathways. He had a slight suspicion that his Energy Sight was like the Byukugan, but he couldn't prove anything yet.

Using this ability, he began evaluating the two fighters in the arena. He could tell that Dosu definitely had the edge in chakra, but Ino had a much more fluid flow then he did. He would have to wait for the battle to begin to see how it was going to affect them, but for now he decided to look at everyone else. Obviously both Itachi and Orochimaru had the largest concentrations of youki/chakra in the room seeing that he couldn't see himself with it. Everyone else what he had figured until his eyes landed on the grass gennin he had figured to hold Beliar's right eye. He was quite surprised to find traces of banpaia ryoku flowing through him with an abnormal amount of chakra that rivaled Gaara's. Narrowing his eyes at this development, he put it aside for now as the first fight was about to begin.

Seeing that everyone was up on the balconies, Genma looked over at the two gennin making sure they were ready. As he was about to start the match, the doors opened much to his annoyance and he was ready to throw them out when his eyes widened slightly seeing who it was. Each council member with a child in the exam had entered much to Genma's along with mostly everyone else's surprise. Leading the group, Hiashi noticed that Genma was about to start the fight. "My apologizes for interrupting examiner, but we wish to see our children fight. You may continue once we are in the stands."

Genma mentally scoffed at his words, but didn't show it visually as he knew Hiashi would pick it up. He knew that wasn't the reason he was there as he had no love for Hinata and vice a versa. The true reason he showed up along with the rest of the council was to gauge how much of a threat Naruto was especially after he had dispatched one of the Root Anbu Danzo sent after Naruto with extreme ease. And not to mention the fact that he was at the meeting with Itachi and Orochimaru when the latter admitted that Naruto was quite possibly stronger than he was.

Sighing lightly, he nodded and motioned for the council members to move to the stairs. Once they were standing besides there children, he shook his head as he looked back towards the two combatants, looking eager to start the fight. He absently noticed Inoishi smirking believing his daughter would win this battle. Secretly he was rooting for Dosu just to knock the man down a peg, which wasn't too hard seeing that he could beat him, though it would take some work. Shaking his head of that thought, he looked over the two and raised both of his hands. "Are both of you ready?" Getting a nod from Dosu and a grin from Ino, Genma swung his arms down. "Then let the first match of the preliminaries begin!"

Ino didn't waste any time as she pulled out a few shuriken and threw them towards Dosu and quickly pulled out a kunai and charged the bandaged gennin. Dosu lazy put up his metallic arm to block the shuriken before concentrating his chakra to the clang and amplified his melody arm and moved his arm forward slightly so he could send the sound wave towards the charging Ino. To his surprise, Ino dodged his arm along with his wave and threw her kunai at his ankle. Being slowed down with the haystack on his back along with his melody arm, Dosu knew he couldn't block the kunai fast enough and jumped back just enough to dodge it.

Looking towards Ino, he was quite surprised to see that she was moving faster then she was during their fight in the forest. He cursed mentally as he had underestimated her and was forced to block her strikes with another kunai she pulled out. It was difficult as he was weighed down by his weights, but he had quickly caught on to her attack style and was blocking her strikes with his melody arm with ease. As it was beginning to become easier to block her strikes, he began focusing his chakra to his arm and sent the sound wave towards Ino's ear.

From the sidelines, Naruto was quite impressed by the Yamanaka girl not thinking she would have provided Dosu with much of a challenge. He had noted with his Energy Sight that she definitely had the better usage of chakra, but Dosu had finally turned the table with his sound wave. But something was off with the Ino as she didn't seem to be effected by it as it neared. Taking a closer look, he was slightly surprised at what he saw.

Dosu was in shock as his sound wave hadn't even affected the girl who now was smirking at him before delivering a kick to his stomach before slashing him across the chest with both her kunai. Dosu managed to jump back and only took a light X shape cut on his chest. His eyes narrowed as Ino smirked as she slid into her stance. "You technique won't work on me thanks to these ear plugs. Shikamaru analyze your fighting style when you attempted to ambush Sasuke's team, so we know all about your sound waves."

Dosu narrowed his eyes at his before a small smirk developed on his face even though she couldn't see it. From above Orochimaru was smirking as well knowing the foolish girl had just given Dosu the key he needed to win and he would capitalize on that for sure. As he suspected, Dosu reached behind him and grabbed the haystack on his back and threw it off him. "I'll admit that was a smart plan, even if it wasn't your own. But I'm through playing around little girl."

Before Ino could react, Dosu raced towards and was on her. With one strike of his melody arm, he had slammed her to the wall causing a high pitch ringing noise as his melody arm activated its full power. Ino screamed in agony as the sound vibrated through her entire body viciously before she fell unconscious as her body had never taken such a blow before. Pulling his arm back and stopping his vibrations as Naruto had told him the day before not to kill any Konoha gennin unless he gave the word, he looked down at Ino and visually spat in disguised at her. "Never reveal your secrets to an enemy."

Genma could only nod as the medics rushed towards Ino as Inoishi looked down in shock that his girl had lost. It was a bad move on her part to reveal what she was doing to counter him and it alerted him to use a different approach. Shaking his head, Genma raised his right hand seeing that the left hand balcony was on his right. "Winner, Kinta Dosu."

Dosu smirked as he was quite pleased with himself while he picked up his stack of hay and placed it on his back before walking up the steps. As the medics checked up on Ino and had determined she was only out cold, much to the relief of Inoishi, Naruto turned over to Dosu as he stood besides them. "Not a bad fight, but you did underestimate her severely."

Naruto smirked as he noticed Dosu gritting his teeth lightly, not liking the fact that someone other then Orochimaru had pointed out the obvious, but didn't respond seeing that Naruto was far superior then he was. Shaking his head lightly, the dual breed turned towards the screen as the names began to cycle once more. "I'll see what I can do about helping you training for the next month so you'll be able to win much easier next time."

Dosu looked surprised at this while Orochimaru smirked in his disguise and nodded at his gennin to accept his offer, which he obviously did, before turning to Naruto. "That would be a wonderful idea Naruto-kun. Just make sure it won't affect your training my boy."

Naruto nodded back as he smirked lightly at him. "No worry about that. I have the perfect person to train him, though I doubt she'll like it but she will go along with it."

Both Itachi and Yugito looked at Naruto in confusion not knowing that neither Gobi, Nibi or Rayne would train the sound boy. They mentally made a note to ask about who it was later, not knowing any other females that would train him seeing that Yonbi wasn't a fighter. Before they could think on it further and figure out whom it could be, two names flashed upon the board.

Akimichi Chouji vs. Yakushi Kabuto

Chouji was a little surprised that he was called this early and was shock at what happened to Ino, but quickly overcame it remembering that Kabuto had not been able to pass any of his other six Chunin Exams. Unfortunately for him, Kabuto wasn't about to make this his seventh failed trip though it mattered not as he was far stronger then every true gennin in the exam. The only ones he wasn't sure about were Naruto and the grass kid. He knew it could go either way against Gaara, but he was pretty sure he could beat Yugito. But then again, none of them were real gennins anyways and were at least jounin, though he was pretty sure Naruto was stronger then most Kages.

Shaking that thought off, his eyes glanced over at Orochimaru seeing if he wanted him to continue. No one was able to notice this as he had used Itachi as a meat shield, so no one knew what the disguised Orochimaru was nodding at. Kabuto smirked lightly as he reached the bottom the same time as Chouji was receiving a pep talk from Chouza. "Alright now Chouji, remember everything I taught you and don't make the same mistake Ino did. Now go out there and do your best."

From the sidelines, Naruto smiled lightly seeing that at least one of the council members that had came cared for their child and wasn't there to keep an eye on him. He made a mental note to see if he could talk to the large Akimichi as he seemed to possess what was needed to live in the new Konoha. The Will of the Fire. Taking a look down at the arena, he deactivated his Energy sight knowing there was no need to as he already knew the victor, though he was hoping that Kabuto would let Chouji put on a good show for his father to see what his reaction would be.

As they took their place, Genma looked over the two and mentally sighed as he knew the result of this match as well seeing that Kabuto had graduated in the same class as he did even though he was a few years younger. Seeing that they were both ready, he raised his hands once more before bringing them down to initiate the fight.

Kabuto stood passively as he looked over at Chouji, waiting for him to make the first move. Noticing this, Chouji smirked lightly as he pulled out four chains with spikes attached to them. Kabuto raised his eyebrow at this, wondering what the large boy was up to when he suddenly wrapped the spikes around him so they wouldn't hurt him. Knowing what he was going to do, Kabuto began formulating a plan to defeat him while not wasting any chakra. Sure he could rush over and end the fight in one punch, but he didn't want to show that he was that much stronger then Chouji so he would have to win subtly.

As Kabuto was going over how to win without revealing a thing, Chouji had performed Baika no Jutsu and expanded into a giant ball like he had done against Naruto. Seeing that he had done just as Kabuto had planned, he rolled over towards the medical spy quicker then he could have rushed towards him on his own two legs. Kabuto side stepped the rolling Chouji and barely avoided being nicked by the spikes covering the large boy. He jumped back as Chouji made a U-turn and barreled towards him. Seeing how hard of a time he had turning, Kabuto figured it to be lack of experience and that the arena was much smaller then he was used to.

Using this advantage, Kabuto placed himself near the corner as the rolling Akimichi neared him. Just as he was about to make contact, Kabuto dived out of the way forcing the Chouji to ram the wall. He was mildly surprised; he had recovered quickly and had decided to roll backwards in an attempt to catch him off guard. Unfortunately he hadn't and Kabuto once again side stepped him, but this time the medic nin counter attacked and landed a blow in the shirt opening, striking Chouji's collar bone. Unfortunately his hand got caught up in one of the chains and had cut his arm pretty decently, but he had managed to pull it out before more damage could be done.

Chouji continued rolling, but in a straight line till he crashed into the wall before he began to deflate. Kabuto knew the fight was over as he landed a powerful enough blow on a pressure point on his collar. Sure enough, Chouji had completely deflated and was out cold. Genma nodded as he raised his right hand once more. "Winner, Yakushi Kabuto."

Chouza was the first down as he picked up his son, already knowing what Kabuto had done to his son. He was slightly disappointed that his son was beaten so easily, but at the same time Kabuto was an experienced gennin so it wasn't really that fair of a fight. He looked over towards Kabuto to ask what he did just to make sure when Kabuto pointed to his collar bone. Chouza nodded as he suspected so and picked Chouji up before shushining up onto the balcony as he laid his son down while Kabuto walked up the steps of the other balcony.

Naruto smiled lightly at the affection that Chouza showed for his own son. A pang of sorrow washed over him as he never knew how a father's love felt. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath before shaking that feeling off as it was something he didn't want to dwell on. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, his eyes opened to see Yugito looking at him worriedly. A small smile graced Naruto's lips before he waved her off. "It's nothing Yugito."

Yugito frowned at this knowing it wasn't the truth, but seeing the look on Naruto she left it alone knowing that it was something he didn't want to talk about. She sighed lightly at this wishing that he would allow someone to know what he was feeling. Not even Gobi, Itachi, Kyuubi or Rayne knew what Naruto truly felt, only what he showed to them. While he didn't hide that he was happy around them, he made sure no one could see his pain and sorrow. She looked down slightly and sighed deeply, wishing there was something she could do to help him at least ease the pain. As she looked up once again, she noted the electronic board had stopped on two names.

Sabaku no Gaara vs. Sai

In an instant, Gaara had used his sand to shushin himself down to the arena. He was itching for another battle, but this time to prove a point. He didn't want to lose control of himself and allow the years that Shukaku had driven him insane to show. And for one other reason. He wanted to prove that he was just as much of a threat as Naruto and Yugito was. He was tired being thought of the lower of the team as his abilities were mostly unknown while the others openly showed theirs.

Sai on the other hand was not looking forward to this battle. He knew absolutely nothing about this red head or his abilities. The only thing he could come up with was that he used sand for his jutsu, explaining why he carried a gourd of it around. He wasn't too worried as he was a match for their new jounin sensei if he choose to be, but then again Ling-sensei wasn't all that good seeing that he was just promoted a month ago. Not wanting to look bad in front of his assigned ward, Sai calmly walked down the steps and into the arena. Unfortunately he didn't notice both Kiba and Shino tense up as he went down to the arena. Sasuke did on the other hand and walked towards both of them. "Hey, what's wrong with you two?"

Kiba looked towards Sasuke as Shino kept his eye on Gaara, ready to intervene for Sai's well being if he had to. Taking a deep breath, Kiba spoke as everyone's attention on their side was drawn to him. "We had an encounter with his team in the forest. While we watched from the sidelines, the red head completely destroyed a team from Amegakure and even killed one viciously before both his teammates step in and spared the other two's lives. He used his sand like a weapon, but the worse part is that he didn't even have to lift a finger for it to defend him against a three hundred and sixty degree attack. It was like as if his sand had a mind of it's own that coexists with his."

Hearing this, most of the council members' eyes narrowed as they began putting things together. They each knew that Sabaku was the Kazekage's last name and they also knew the powers of the one tailed jinchuuriki as Suna never attempted to hind any of the bijuu's vessels. So hearing of his ability and the fact that Suna no longer had their jinchuuriki, most realized that he was their jinchuuriki.

From below, only Genma had heard this but he wasn't too surprised. While he hadn't known that Gaara was a demon vessel, it really didn't matter to him as Naruto was the same, or at least he thought as he wasn't told that he wasn't human any longer. Looking between the two gennins, he raised his arms slowly while being ready to move knowing that both could cause him bodily harm if they struck quickly. Noticing the tension in Sai's body, he dropped his arms quickly as he jumped back slightly.

Sai pulled out a kunai and threw it towards Gaara as his other hand itched towards his ink bottle and sketch pad. He came prepared with a few pre-drawn pictures so it would only need chakra sent into them to make his paints to come to life. To his surprise, his kunai was blocked before it even touched Gaara as sand poured out of his gourd and onto the ground after it threw the kunai towards him. He easily side stepped the kunai, but was still slightly surprised seeing what just happened. Seeing that he had far more control over the sand then he thought, Sai opened his notepad and focused his chakra to his sketches creating two ink clones.

Gaara was unimpressed. Having that much time during the exam and to know, he figured he would have had more prepared in case of just this. Sighing mentally, he kept his sand near him as he began to funnel it into the ground as he didn't want to make the same mistake or underestimate his opponent as he was at least as strong as a jounin. Seeing the three Sai's surround him, Gaara evened his sand around him so it kept them from making contact with him.

The three Sai's charged towards the sand jinchuuriki. The two clones drew their kunais and slashed at him only for the sand to block each of their strikes. The real Sai jumped back and pulled a hand full of shuriken and threw them at Gaara's back. He was caught of guard once more seeing that the sand had blocked them without him even seeing the attack. Sai narrowed his eyes at this and began wondering on how to get through Gaara's sand shield. His clones continued to attack as he ordered them to, but neither seemed to be making any progress. He knew the clones were about a fourth of his true speed, but seeing that the sand had no problem blocking them, it would most likely block his strikes easily.

Getting annoyed at the constant attacks of the clones and seeing that his opponent was trying to analyze his sand, Gaara struck. Pulling his arms in front of him, he lashed his sand at the two clones, who attempted to jump back. Neither had a chance as the sand wrapped around the quickly and kept their arms and legs pinned. With the two clones at his mercy, he clenched his fist making the two explode into a shower of ink as their bodies were crushed with amazing pressure. Gaara narrowed his eyes as he noticed some of his sand become useless before realizing that the clones were made of ink and ink was a heavy liquid meaning that his sand had become wet.

While Sai was surprised to see his clones destroyed with suck ease he didn't forget this was a fight so he had noticed that some of the sand had become useless. It wasn't enough to affect Gaara, but it had gave him and idea. Checking the amount of ink he had, he refrained from growling as he was running short so he would have only enough for one and if it failed, he would have to surrender as he couldn't win with his lacking taijutsu. Taking a deep breath, he began to go through the seals while focusing his chakra to his pad and his remanding ink.

Getting slightly annoyed and wanting to end this fight quickly, Gaara waved his left arm towards Sai and his sand responded and flew towards the ink shinobi. Sai cursed lightly as he jumped back and onto the tora seal statue to by himself some time as he continued going through his hand seals. Seeing this Gaara began sending his sand into the air forming a cloud of sand forming around Sai and closing in quickly. But it wasn't fast enough as Sai finished his seals and a clone formed besides him and jumped into the cloud of sand.

"Sumi Bunshin Daibakuha!"

The clone erupted into a torrent of ink spraying the lower half of the arena in ink. Gaara looked mildly surprised, but retained some of his sand from the blast seeing that the rest fell uselessly to the ground having the ink stick to it. Sai jumped from his perch on the tora seal statue covered in ink as he wasn't able to escape his own blast and headed straight for Gaara with his kunai drawn. As he reached him, he slashed at Gaara's throat in an attempt to end the fight, but to his extreme surprise his entire body was wrapped in sand as Gaara looked at him coldly. "Surrender or end up like your clones."

Sai looked at Gaara in shock as he tried to figure out where his extra sand came from. Looking around, he noticed sand escaping from a small hole in the ground and forming around Gaara and him. Sai cursed lightly for not seeing this earlier and putting it into his calculations and seeing that he had no way out of his predicament, he sighed out loud. "I surrender."

"Winner, Sabaku no Gaara." Genma quickly announced just as Gaara let go of Sai before using his sand to teleport him besides Naruto and Yugito.

As he teleported besides him, Naruto couldn't help but look slightly amused at the remaining twelve true Konoha gennin. Each of them were in some sort of state of shock seeing that in three straight matches one of them had lost. Sasuke hid his the best, but with a look of his eyes he was surprised that at least one of them hadn't one. Even Hinata looked mildly surprised thinking that at least Chouji should have won seeing that he had the best match up. Naruto shook his head slightly at all of them before turning to Gaara with the same amused smile. "Much better, though I had a feeling you would be."

Gaara nodded though he was slightly annoyed that he hadn't won his fight as fast as he wanted to. Yugito shook her head at the two as she moved to stand at Naruto's other side, catching Gaara's attention along with Itachi's. Of course the latter was first to speak as this gave him some ammunition on her at least. "Well, well Yugito-chan. Moving closer to your crush are we?"

Yugito blushed lightly at the truth of the statement, though she would deny it without hesitation. So quickly covering up her blush, she responded louder then she intended to. "No I'm not! I'm just getting impatient waiting for a decent fight. Besides..." She quietly trailed off at the end as an image of Gobi with Naruto went through her mind.

Itachi looked surprised at her sudden mood swing as he was only teasing her. A light bulb lit up when he remembered that Yugito never had a menstrual cycle when she was human so it had taken her longer for her body to mature. He smirked lightly knowing what was happening before his eyes widened remembering Nibi would be arriving soon and then... He shuddered lightly, making sure to prepare himself for her arrival.

Seeing Itachi stopping his teasing, Yugito looked at him in wonder as he normally didn't relent that easy so she didn't even know she was out of her normal character. Naruto shook his head as he placed his hand on her shoulder, making the cat hanyou jump lightly before she glared at him. Refraining from laughing, Naruto turned to the screen seeing that the names that it had landed on.

Rock Lee vs. Hyuuga Neji

"Yosh! Now is my time to shine and show the power of youth to everyone here! And who better then my rival to fight against!” Lee yelled as he pumped his fist into the air.

Gai was slightly torn as it would be showing favoritism if he went to join Lee in his ranting of youth, but then again Neji was use to it. But to keep it fair, he encouraged both of them. "Yosh my students! Neji, Lee. You two are both of my students and no matter the victory, I will be proud of both of you! Go out there and give it your all and don't hold back!"

Neji was slightly surprised at this as he expected Gai and Lee to rant about the flames of youth and end up in a hug, but he was slightly glad they didn't. Though he was slightly pissed that Gai hadn't just came out and say that he would win. There was no way Lee could beat him, but then again he had been training with Gai after they're assigned team practice. So he knew the green clad gennin would be a decent challenge, but he wasn't the one he wanted. He wanted either the Uchiha or Naruto, especially after being embarrassed in the forest like he was. Though he also heard what Hinata said about him making him question his motives, but he put that aside for now.

Shaking that thought off, he simply walked down to the arena as Lee jumped down barely able to contain his excitement. From the other side, Naruto was comparing the two from what he had seen of them in the brawl. After taking a look at Lee with his Energy Sight, he knew he had no chakra whatsoever to use, but his taijutsu skills were incredible. And it also seemed that he was wearing weights as well meaning he could be even faster then what he was. Neji on the other hand was well versed in the jyuken and was quick with his strikes. The Byukugan would allow him to see Lee's speed if he took of the weights on him as he remembered putting a little effort when he threw the azure beast.

Genma looked at the two as they looked at the other as if they sizing the other up. Even though they were on the same team, they had no clue of the others full abilities as they were a pretty distant team with only Tenten being their only lines of communications. Seeing them both slip into their respective taijutsu stances, Genma raised his hands to his sides before swinging them down. "Let the fourth match commence!"

Both stared each other down as they waited for the other to make a move. Lee knew he would have to make it, but he wanted to see how long it would take for the branch house prodigy to get frustrated with his new found patience. After a full minute of waiting and seeing no change in his face, Lee figured he would start it off seeing that Neji wasn't. In a blurry second, the green beast was on Neji who activated his Byukugan just in time. Lee threw a furious amount of punches and kicks at the prodigy who was able to evade and push them off while getting in a few strikes of his own. Seeing that his frontal assault was back firing on him, Lee jumped back in an attempt to create some distance.

Neji wasn't having any of that as he moved with him and began hitting Lee with numerous palm strikes. The green beast was having trouble now. While he could take the damage, it was beginning to cost him as Neji was now aiming for organs to disable seeing that there was no point to shut off his tenketsu seeing that Lee didn't need his chakra system. Of course now Lee was landing blows on him seeing that he was going to get hit, so purposely left openings but struck him with each hit. While he was use to internal pain, the physical pain of being hit by Lee was stinging.

Suddenly he found himself stumbling forward as Lee vanished into thin air, or so it would seem. With his Byukugan he was able to keep up but wasn't able catch him knowing Gai's apprentice was much faster then he was. Regaining his balance, he slid into the jyuken stance as he looked over towards Lee who was now on the other side of the room. He narrowed his eyes seeing Lee dusting himself off and was about to slide into his taijutsu stance when he remembered what Gai had said to him before the fight began. A small smirk crossed Lee's lips as he looked over to Gai for permission.

Seeing his student looking up at him with the look he was giving him, Gai could only smile and give him a thumbs up. He wanted to see his students to do the best they could and Lee was attempting to achieve one of his goals. And to him, his students goals were more precious then his own. If they wanted something, he would go over and beyond to make sure they got it.

Neji frowned seeing Gai give Lee the good guy pose before his attention turned back to Lee as he sat down and pulled off his orange warmers to see weights. While this didn't surprise him initially, the small craters they made as Lee dropped them to the ground did. In fact everyone was somewhat shocked seeing the amount the weight that was on the kid except for Naruto seeing that he had thrown the green beast. Itachi was the first to voice what everyone was thinking as Lee stood up. "Okay, that is complete overkill. How in the world was he wearing so much weight?"

Everyone else could only nod as Lee as he slid back into his stance while he beckoned Neji to come. The Hyuuga prodigy snapped out of his daze as he looked over at Lee and noticed the beckoning. His anger flared seeing this and charged his teammate quickly. To his surprise as he was on him, Lee was able to block most of his strikes while delivering more hits on him then he could count. While he expected Lee to be faster, he hadn't expected the speed of his attacks to be so much faster. Before he could think what this could mean, Lee appeared besides him with his leg extended.

He felt the air leave his lungs as his heel hit his stomach, but quickly regained control of himself as he stumbled back. Swiveling his head around, Neji was mentally cursing as all he could see was a green blur before seeing Lee for a brief second as he landed another blow on him. It was annoying him to no end seeing that he was trying to stop his teammate so that he could stand a chance. He briefly thought for a moment that Lee had drank some sort of alcohol and went berserk again. A thought hit him as soon as he thought off that, but before he could execute his plan he felt Lee kick him in the chin, sending him into the air.

Seeing Neji being knocked into the air, a few shinobi knew what was about to happen having seen the technique executed by Gai many times. Lee appeared behind him much to the young Hyuuga's surprise not having seen him move. Seeing him unravel his bandages and wrap them around him, Neji gritted his teeth as he had no choice but to use this technique even if it was incomplete. As Lee began spinning the around in the air like a human cyclone, Neji began exerting chakra from each of his tenketsu points evenly. Chakra began to form around him and started to spin as Lee began plummeting with them to the ground. As they neared the ground, Neji let his newest technique loose before Lee could push him in front.

"Kaiten!"

The blue chakra surrounding Neji exploded in a cyclone itself and pushed Lee off him as they hit the ground forming a crater. Once again everyone had looked surprised in the balconies, no more so then Hyuuga Hiashi himself. He was in shock that someone else had used his technique but even more so that a lowly branch member had done it. While it wasn't perfect, it was still the Kaiten. What was more alarming to him was that he managed to use it without swirling himself without it meaning that he would have more control over it then he did. His eyes narrowed at this and made a mental note to pay Neji a visit later.

The two shakily stood up from their crater caused by the Omote Renge and the Kaiten. Both were feeling the after effects of their respective techniques and were taking their time to recover. Fortunately for Neji the Kaiten took less time to recover then the Lotus. Taking advantage of this, Neji decided to end the battle here and now as he slid into another stance Hiashi instantly recognized, the Hakke Rokujuyon Sho. "Lee, this fight is over. You’re in my field of divination."

As he finished, Neji quickly moved out of his stance and quickly began striking Lee where his tenketsu would be. It started off with two hits, then doubled to four then eight and finally ended with sixty-four. As the last strike hit Lee, he stumbled before falling to one knee as he began panting heavily. Taking a look at his teammate, Neji was beginning to understand why Gai trained him after their scheduled time. Lee had asked for so he could become stronger and against his nature, he had to agree he had become much stronger. But this fight was over even if Lee was trying to get up. "Lee surrender and save your energy. I don't wish to hurt you any further."

His face dropped as he noticed Lee standing up once more with a smile on his face. He began wondering why he was smiling before he noticed the massive amount of chakra coming from his teammate. Knowing this wasn't normal seeing that he couldn't use chakra, he looked at his Byukugan only to see that Lee had done something he hadn't counted on. He had opened a gate when he hit him with Hakke Rokujuyon Sho meaning that not all of his tenketsu were shut off. And now he had opened another gate, forcing the rest opened. Taking a step back in surprise as he noticed his teammate’s skin becoming red, Neji looked shocked as Lee looked at him with his smile. "No Neji, I will not surrender. I will prove right here and now that hard work can overcome natural talent."

Hearing this Neji began preparing for another Kaiten. While he knew it was incomplete it would still be able to reflect whatever he was planning. But to his surprise, Lee just disappeared. No blur. He was just gone. That's all he knew when he felt a fist connect to his chin. After that, he knew the true meaning of pain as he was rocketed towards the wall, only to see the red Lee appear in front of him a kick him into the air. What happened next was Neji becoming a pinball as Lee kept appearing in front of him before he could collide with the wall, floor or ceiling.

Lee was considering using the Ura Renge, but there was no need. Neji was at his limit and so was he. Letting the young Hyuuga collide with the ground, Lee landed besides him as his skin color reverted back only for him to drop to his knees and begin panting heavily. While he could have opened two more gates, it would have done for more damage then it would have been worth. Looking over at his teammate, he was beginning to believe he over did it when Neji began moaned in pain and began twitching as he tried to move only to find he hurt way too much to do so.

Seeing this, Genma stepped forward and checked on both of them and was about to call the match when Lee fell to the ground, out cold. Genma frowned lightly at this as he wanted to give the victory to Lee, but he had passed out due to the damage Neji had caused on him and the gates. Sighing lightly to himself, he raised both his hands. "Due to a double knockout, neither will advance to the finals."

From the sidelines, everyone was slightly surprised at the result other then Tenten. While Gai had believed that Lee could win, she knew both well as she trained with both Lee and Neji outside of their designated time as a team. She knew there skills inside and out and knew that the fight would end in a draw soon as the two names were called. While she actually thought Neji would have been closer to winning, it was the same result none the less. Now the two had to come to turns that they were even, not better then the other.

As the medics checked both Gai's male students out, Naruto was mildly impressed. While Neji was never in position to use the Kaiten on him, it would have helped him decently as it was a good attack to repel attacks from all angles along with speedy opponents. Lee's speed was quite surprising and his ability to open the gates left him a little peeved as he didn't get to fight him as it sure would have been a good work out. Sighing lightly to himself and grumbling about not ever fighting the good ones, he looked up at the board not noticing Itachi grinning at him.

Inuzuka Kiba vs. Youma Akina

Kiba took a deep breath hearing who he was going up against. He was slightly afraid of having to take on some of the others still up there. Of course he wanted to fight Naruto, but at the same time he wasn't looking forward to it seeing that he was on top of Kabuto card list and so far, he hadn't been wrong about it seeing that the card underneath Naruto's was Gaara's. And hearing what Yugito said in the forest, she was actually above Gaara. So he wasn't really interested in facing that team. He also really didn't want to have to go up against someone from his class as everyone had at least on some idea on what the others could do.

As he jumped into the arena and the black haired grass ninja with yellow eyes walked down the arena with an aura of murder around him, Naruto took a look at the two with his Energy Sight before shaking his head. Kiba had the advantage on both chakra size and control on the grass ninja. His only redeeming factor was that it looked like he was a sword user seeing that he had a small version of a claymore, though it still was 5 feet long, attached to his back and had to be at least moderately strong to wield the weapon effectively. Sighing lightly having a feeling who was going to win the battle, Naruto laid on the railing lazily.

Shaking her head besides him, Yugito smiled lightly knowing he was getting bored as she was honestly getting bored herself. Leaning on the railing besides him, looked down to the arena to see the match getting ready to start. From behind them, Gaara was mouthing a prayer while Itachi shook his head while smiling.

As soon as Genma started the fight, Kiba threw two smoke bombs at the Kusagakure gennin before feeding Akamaru a soldier pill. Before he could even use his signature jutsu with Akamaru, the Kusa gennin broke through the smoke with his claymore drawn, charging the Inuzuka. Jumping out of his way as he brought his blade down, his eyes widened in surprise as the claymore sliced into the ground with ease. Not wasting another second as he pulled the blade out, he used Shikyaku no Jutsu as his feature became more feral. Using his accelerated speed, he dodged the wide arc of the blade before clawing the grass gennin's face before delivering a knee to his stomach.

Seeing him stumble, the larger and red Akamaru jumped into his legs tripping the gennin up before standing next to Kiba as he went through the necessary hand seals to transform Akamaru into a clone of himself. As he finished, the grass ninja was up holding his sword tightly as he gritted his teeth before he went through one handed hand seals. The ground besides the grass shinobi rose up till it was the same size of his sword before molding into exactly that.

Kiba looked slightly surprised seeing this before settling himself into a defensive position as the grass gennin began spinning his two claymores wildly in separate hands. Gripping one of his kunai, he threw it quickly at the Kusa gennin to see him easily deflect it. Seeing this, Kiba threw another smoke bomb as both he and Akamaru jumped in two different directions. The smoke quickly fanned out with the swords, but the gennin was confused as he was trying to tell which Kiba was which. Kiba on the other hand was trying to figure out how to get past the spinning blades without losing a limb as close ranged combat was his specialty.

A small smirk crossed his lips as he came up with a plan, but it was rather risky. Dashing towards his opponent, he was about to pounce him when the spinning blade was faced in his direction. Planning on this, Kiba jumped behind him and threw a kunai at his back. He was slightly hoping it would have hit him, but he wasn't surprised to see him block the kunai, but he had to stop spinning his claymores to do it. Akamaru seeing this took his opportunity and slashed the grass gennin's back, only to take the hilt of the sword to his face. He turned around and was about to bring the blades down onto the human shaped dog when Kiba using Tsuga slammed into his back, hurling the grass gennin into the wall but more importantly disarming him.

Jumping back from the cratered wall where the grass gennin stood, Kiba kicked him to the other side of the arena as both he and Akamaru prepared to end the battle. As soon as the grass ninja had left the safety of his crater, he was hit by another Tsuga, but this time followed by another and another as both Akamaru and Kiba were using it. After a few more blows, the grass shinobi was down for the count as Kiba and Akamaru stopped spinning. Genma could only shake his head as he raised his hand. "Winner, Inuzuka Kiba."

Kiba smirked as Akamaru reverted back to normal before he walked back up the stairs to a smiling Hana and Tsume, congratulating him while wishing it was Naruto it was he humiliated. When they heard Shikamaru snort, all attention was on him. Muttering troublesome under his breath while berating himself for letting that escape, he sighed lightly. "You'll learn soon enough. He hasn't fought yet, but whoever it is I pity them."

From the other side, Naruto smirked in the general direction of Shikamaru as the rest of the adults were wondering what he meant while all the gennin agreed even if it was half heartedly. Even Sasuke was nodding as he didn't want to face Naruto yet. Seeing what he did to them in the forest was enough of a deterrent in that regard. Now all he cared for was how he knew of his brother and what he was after. Seeing the look on Sasuke's face, Naruto instantly looked away and to the board as the names flashed onto the next two.

Akado Yoroi vs. Hyuuga Hinata

Hinata sighed in relief seeing her name called knowing that she wouldn't have to be fighting someone she knew she couldn't beat. With her father here, she couldn't afford to lose as it would mean she would be disowned by him and made part of the branch house. It wasn't all that different then her situation now, but she would rather not have her own sister using the seal on her as she and Hanabi hadn't gotten along in recent years. As she was about to walk down the steps, Hiashi interrupted her. "Hinata, do not disappoint me. You are still a main branch member, so you will fight accordingly."

She coldly glanced at him before turning back without a word as she was doing her best to contain her rage. Her father was the reason the clan was so screwed up. If anyone else was leading the clan, not counting the elders, the clan wouldn't be as bad as it was. Now that she knew of the invasion of Konoha though, her time to overthrow her father was at time. She would free her clan from his clutch and bring it back to its glory. But for now, she had this battle to win.

As she walked down, Naruto noticed her chakra flaring silently around her and knew what she had to be thinking about. Then again, maybe her father could piss her off that much. He had to admit, if he would have stayed in Konoha she would probably been someone important to him. Shaking that thought from his head of that thought, he smiled lightly and nodded at her as her eyes briefly met his. Yugito noticed this and mentally growled but forced it down knowing that Naruto wasn't interested in her. And if he was, she was pretty sure Gobi would do something about it.

Down in the pretty beaten down arena, Genma looked over at Yoroi before turning to Hyuuga. He absently wondered if Hinata would let her anger at her father show itself during the fight as she wasn't restraining her emotions as well as she normally did. Sighing lightly to himself, an act that almost went unnoticed, Genma raised his hands before starting the fight.

Hinata acted first as she activated her Byukugan silently as Yoroi went through the hand seals before his hands began to glow and odd color. She narrowed her eyes at this as she looked at the odd chakra before she realized what it could do from just seeing the flow. Yoroi quickly rushed her, wanting for once to pass the exam, but Hinata was prepared form him as she slid into the jyuken stance. As he was on her, he attempted to grab her only for her to gently brush his hand away with a tap to his wrist.

He mentally noticed his chakra fluctuate, but he was in too much of a hurry to end the fight to truly notice it as he continued attacking her. Hinata easily parried each strike with gentle taps making Yoroi pick up the furry of his blows. It didn't matter as she continued easily countering him and began to strike the tenketsu in his arm keeping him from using any ninjutsu for the rest of the battle. She smirked lightly as he hadn't even realized that she had cut off his chakra to his arms as he kept trying to grab her.

Getting bored of blocking him, she let him grab her shoulder. To his surprise, he wasn't absorbing her chakra and looked at her strangely only to see the young Hyuuga stifling a laugh as she looked up to him with her Byukugan flaring. "Did you honestly think I would let you absorb my chakra?" Seeing Yoroi's confusion, she smirked viciously at him. "Take a look at your arms idiot." Before he could do so, she landed a palm strike to his stomach, sending the older gennin to the ground. Looking towards Genma, Hinata spoke in the same cold tone. "Proctor, this fight is over. I hit a nerve on his stomach so he won't be moving from that position for a while."

Genma could only shake his head as he could see that as Yoroi hadn't moved a single inch other then the occasional twitching from him attempting to move. Though before he could officially give her the victory since her opponent wasn't knocked out or dead he mentally counted to ten. Once he reached the said number, he raised his hand in Hinata's favor. "Winner, Hyuuga Hinata."

Hinata nodded as she already knew she had one and headed up the stairs with a stoic expression. Her father nodded in approval of her victory, though he was far from proud. Figuring this, Hinata refrained from sticking him in the heart with a well aimed palm strike as she would be immediately executed for killing a council member. Taking a breath to calm himself down, she leaned against the wall and over to where Naruto was only to see him besides the blonde hair girl. She was slightly jealous of her, but she pushed that thought back as she barely knew the blonde hair boy.

Naruto noticed the slight peeved look that was sent towards his general direction by Hinata. He absently wondered why she gave him that look before realizing it wasn't directed at him, but to Yugito. He could only shake his head as he smiled lightly as he looked over at the said blonde's direction, only to see her cracking her knuckles. Wondering why, he looked up to the screen and noticed it had landed on two names.

Nii Yugito vs. Haruno Sakura

"Dammit. I have to fight last of us again. Man, I think some bad gambler has taken my luck." Unknown to Naruto at that very second Tsunade had just won ten thousand dollars. Having a feeling something like that happened, he shook his head and looked over towards his fellow blonde. "Good luck Yugito-chan and watch out for that super strength of hers. I think it might be a match for yours."

Yugito nodded with a wicked smile on her face as she jumped down to the arena and landed in a crouch. Naruto could only shake his head at the girl, seemingly too eager to fight. Of course on the other side, Sakura was slightly nervous as she looked down at her opponent. While she knew Naruto couldn't interfere with the battle, something about her was off. Now that she noticed it, the girl had far more chakra then she had noticed when she rudely insulted her. Either that meant she was holding back then or she had rapidly increased her reserves within six days.

Shaking that thought from her head, she was about to head down when her mother grabbed her shoulder. Looking up to her mother, she wondered what she wanted when the woman knelt down and whispered into her ear. "Sakura my baby. I know this is asking a lot of you, but I want you to try and kill that girl." Noticing Sakura's shock, she quickly went on. "I know hunny, but you see the boy she was with. He is the same creature that attempted to destroy our village twelve years ago. While she may be a lost soul caught up in his lies, we cannot chance it."

Overhearing what she had said, both Sasuke and Shino frowned deeply. Sasuke wasn't a fool and knew enough about seals to have figured out that the woman was lying about Naruto being Kyuubi, but why did she want to kill the girl? Wouldn't that just give him a reason to use the demon? Shino was much the same, but with what he was told from his family he decided not to dive to deep into what was going on.

Sakura bit her lip, not because she hadn't killed but for the fact she didn't like causing death. Her mother was asking, no telling her to kill this girl. A girl that she was quite sure that was strong enough to beat her. Not wanting to disappoint her mother seeing that she took care of her since she was born; she nodded as she headed down the stairs. Her mother smiled lightly seeing this as she stood up; ignoring the look she was getting from Sasuke.

As Sakura made it to the center of the arena, Genma looked over the two while eyeing Mrs. Haruno suspiciously, knowing she was up to something. Not having any proof though, he couldn't say anything. Taking a moment to make sure both were ready, he slowly began lifting his hands to start the battle when Yugito spoke. "Pinky. I wouldn't try what your mother asked of you. If you somehow succeeded, this entire village would be facing a threat far more dangerous then Kyuubi ever could be."

Sakura's face paled as she looked at Yugito as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the younger girl. She didn't understand how the girl could hear from that far away. Not even those around her noticed what he mother had said, but she managed to pick up on it perfectly. Her eyes widened as she noticed one of the cat ears twitch and instantly understood how she heard her mother. Looking over to her mother, Sakura turned back to Yugito before nodding in agreement as she knew it wasn't an empty threat.

From above, her mother frowned at how quickly she backed down. She would have to correct her daughter for that as he believed it to be an empty threat. Genma looked at all three suspiciously, wondering what the hell was going on before shrugging his shoulders, not really wanting to know. Making sure that both were ready again, he raised his arms. "Let the seventh match, Nii Yugito v Haruno Sakura begin!"

Sakura wasted no time as she rushed towards Yugito as she began to pump chakra into her body at an even and steady flow. Rearing her fist back as she reached the neko hanyou, she focused the chakra to her fist before releasing it. To her surprise, Yugito easily caught her fist without so much as flinching.

Yugito quickly counter attack with a punch to the girl’s ribs but Sakura anticipated the exact move and caught her fist, only to wince but held firm. A small smirk crossed the blondes face seeing this as she finally would have a decent match. With a jerk of her hands, Sakura stumbled forward only to take a knee to the stomach before taking a backhand to her face and flew backwards into the wall. Yugito clenched her fist effectively cracking her knuckles as the pink hair gennin slowly pulled herself out of the newest crater in the arena. The hanyou didn't wait for her to completely get out as she blurred out of existence and appeared in front of Sakura, only to duck below a hand full of shuriken from point blank range.

Taking advantage of this, Sakura used her super strength and pushed herself out of the crater as she landed a kick to Yugito's chin. The cat hanyou skidded across the ground creating small trench marks before coming to a halt. Rushing towards her, Sakura engaged her in a flurry of hyper power blows that sent the other skidding each time they were hit. After a moment of punches, it was becoming obvious who was the superior. Sakura was having a hard time landing near the amount of blows she was taking as Yugito was weaving in and out of her barrage with ease. In fact, if she was landing a hit every ten she received she was doing well.

From above, everyone knew the fight was coming to a close seeing Sakura being worn out by Yugito's assault. Naruto could only shake his head knowing the fight wasn't really fair. While Sakura might have somehow learned Tsunade's super strength technique, it just didn't match up well against pure strength that was at least equal if not above hers. It also seemed that she wasn't use to being hit by her own strength so her stamina was draining fast and add to the fact that Yugito had freakish stamina along with superior speed, she never stood a chance.

After a few more blows, Sakura skid into the wall and fell to her knees panting heavily. Yugito stopped her attack as she looked down at the pink haired girl before placing one hand on her hips. She was actually hoping for a better fight then what she got. Sure, she knew she was going to win seeing she was trained by the strongest demons alive along with the strongest vampire around. But part of her hoped that she didn't completely out match the girl. She would have sighed to herself when she noticed Sakura getting back to her feet once more.

Knowing her chances were slim to win this battle, Sakura would have to go all or nothing now. Focusing the remainder of her chakra to her right arm, she looked towards Yugito before rushing her one last time. Seeing this, Yugito did the same not wanting to disappoint. As the two reached each other, they brought back their fist and attempted to hit the other. Yugito noticing that Sakura was using all of her chakra in this last attack altered her strike so that their fists collided.

A small shock wave filled the room from the collision before the two girls flew back. Sakura rocketed into the wall behind her creating the largest crater in the arena yet as Yugito skidded till she slammed into the wall causing it to crack from the pressure. Slowly pushing herself off the wall, Yugito noticed the dust cloud settle were Sakura had collided to see the young girl lying limply in the crater. From his vantage, and safety, point Genma instantly knew she wasn't getting up as he jumped down. "Winner, Nii Yugito."

Mrs. Haruno looked down in shock as the medics rushed to her daughter. She was sure she could win the entire fight as she had stolen the Tsunade's technique from Shizune and taught her daughter knowing it would give her the edge. And it did, she was the top kunoichi of her class and was even thought to be the next coming of Tsunade. Yet she was defeated with ease by this girl, the demon's companion, with the utmost ease. She growled lightly at the girl as she jumped back into the balcony besides Naruto and Gaara.

Naruto smiled as Yugito jumped between both Gaara and him. Gaara simply nodded to her as it was his way of saying good job. Yugito smiled lightly at him before turning to Naruto noticing his smile turning into a frown. She mentally groaned knowing exactly the reason it did. "No Naruto, I will not tell you what she said. You can figure it out for yourself."

He narrowed his eyes, but said nothing as he knew Yugito wasn't going to tell him. So he made a mental note to talk to Sakura to see exactly what her mother had said. Putting that aside for now, he stretched out as he looked over the arena and shook his head. 'At this rate, by the time I get to fight the arena will be a pile of rubble.'

Looking towards the board, he was beginning to hope his name would be called as he was getting quite anxious for a fight. Though he wasn't interested in fight Sasuke at the moment as he wanted to see how the Uchiha would improve over the month seeing the skill of everyone here. Thinking of him, he noticed the board had stopped.

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Hikiri Paine

Sasuke mentally frowned as he was hoping to fight Naruto, but seeing what happened in the forest he wasn't sure he could stand a chance in a one on one fight against him. Even then, he still wanted to know what Naruto knew of his brother and further more wanted to know what he wanted of him. Ignoring whatever his sensei was saying to him, Sasuke walked down the steps and looked down into the arena to see another grass shinobi. This one had silver eyes with dark blue hair, two daggers at his... her side? He wasn't sure if he was fighting a guy or girl as the face made it difficult to tell.

Naruto had activated his Energy Sight to check the two as Itachi was twitching just as much as the grass gennin was from Sasuke's staring. Naruto refrained laughing as he could see what gender the grass gennin was. Of course he wasn't going to mention this as it was quite humorous to see who was going to break first. As Itachi gritted his teeth from keeping himself from yelling at his younger brother to stop staring at the guy, the grass gennin beat him to the punch. "WILL YOU STOP LOOKING AT ME PIG OR DO I HAVE TO CASTRATE YOU?!"

As soon as everyone heard the voice, Itachi nearly face faulted believe it to be a guy while Sasuke looked completely shocked not believing his eyes. Naruto refrained from laughing at both him and Sasuke and even still he was chuckling. Yugito of course had to join him as she was biting her lip to keep from laughing. Itachi glared at both of them as he couldn't call on his Mangekyou in here. He would have to wait for later to get his revenge.

Regaining his composure, Sasuke shook his head as he turned back into his brooding self. Well that at least answered one question, so he was fighting a girl. Now having no more reason to stare at her, he began slowly sending chakra to his eyes as Genma raised his hands. As soon as he lowered them and started the match, Sasuke's eyes bleed crimson as he activated his Sharingan and slid into a basic academy stance.

The grass girl unlatched her daggers and held one each hand, one reversed while the other held like a knife. Seeing this, Sasuke pulled out two kunai and did the same not wanting to get hit by her blades as she rushed towards him. Sasuke easily read her as she wasn't quite as fast as Kiba's opponent. Multiple clangs were heard as Sasuke parried her strikes easily as he tried to find an opening to attack. While the girl wasn't as fast as her teammate that lost, she definitely had faster movements and more fluid strokes. Sasuke knew the reason being that her type of weapon allowed her quicker movement and that she would have to be better adapt with them to cause serious damage.

Even still, he was struggling as with each slash she became more erratic and even faster then before. While he could see her movements with the Sharingan, he was beginning to have a hard time keeping up with them. Not wanting to be forced into revealing he had something in common with Lee, Sasuke threw one of his kunai towards her face making her duck and roll to avoid a kick. This gave Sasuke enough time to jump as he threw his other kunai towards her before pulling out what seemed to be a fuuma shuriken. Unfolding them, he threw three towards her forcing her to move once more before she raced towards the Uchiha.

Not wanting to allow her on the offensive again, Sasuke went through a few hand seals before ending in a tora. The girl's eyes widened as a large number of small fireballs rushed towards her and she could only barely roll out of the way. Even still some of her hairs were burnt from the heat of the fireballs. Looking up towards the Uchiha, she noticed something off about him as if he was pulling something. Her eyes widened in realization as she picked up the faint glimmer of wires that suddenly surrounded her. Having a brief moment to escape them, she took it and jump into the air.

Unknown to her, Sasuke smirked seeing this as he went through a few more hand seals and breathed deeply. A burst of flames erupted from his mouth as he exhaled, heading straight for the airborne girl. Having no way to dodge and being too high in the air for Kawarimi, she had no choice but to take the flames on as she placed her arms in front of her for defense. It didn't matter as the flames the engulfed her were far hotter then she believed them to be. As the flames hit died down, her body hit the ground with third degree burns covering her body. Genma seeing this called the fight quickly. "Winner, Uchiha Sasuke!"

While most of the Konoha gennin cheered, both Itachi and Naruto narrowed their eyes at what they witnessed. They both could understand using more force then necessary against an unknown factor and knew that killing was allowed it necessary. Obviously Genma believed he went a little too far as well as he called the match right when the girl hit the ground. But Sasuke didn't seemed fazed at what he did in the least. Instead he walked back up the balcony acting like nothing even happened. Now both knew there was a time and place for remorseless killing, but now wasn't it. A gennin was still supposed to be innocent even with the tragedies that had occurred in Sasuke's life.

Both clenched their fists tightly as they calmed themselves down, knowing they couldn't do anything as of now. But they knew it wasn’t entirely his fault as he could only become the way the people around him wished as he was still malleable. Both Itachi and Naruto made a promise to themselves to make the council pay dearly for doing this to their youth. As they vowed their vengeance, neither noticed the board land on two more names.

Abumi Zaku vs. Tsurigi Misumi

Both frowned as their names appeared. They weren't particularly interested in fighting the other as they didn't know a thing about them. While they knew each other as casual acquaintances they didn't know about the other's abilities. Both knew their skills were about the same, which Zaku had to laugh at as Misumi was around eighteen years old and he was only twelve. The two walked down the stairs, glaring at each other the entire way as both wanted to win. As they both reached the cratered arena, Genma waited till the girl was taken out of the arena before he could start the fight. Once she was, he made sure both were ready before beginning the fight.

"Zankuha."

Misumi quickly rolled to the left as a concentrated blast of air passed him and slam into the wall, creating another crater in the now crumbling wall. Zaku continued his assault and shot more blasts of air towards Misumi forcing him into behind the statue of the Tora seal. Seeing this, Zaku began blasting the statue as he walked around it to flush Misumi out. Unknown to him, Misumi was climbing the statue and preparing for his attack.

As Zaku moved to the statue, Misumi struck as he jumped down on top of Zaku. In an instant, all the joints in his body dislocated while his body softened before wrapping tightly around the sound gennin and began to constrict. "Too cocky kid. Now surrender or I'll chock the life out of you."

To his surprise, Zaku just smirked at him. "Actually, you couldn't have made it easier for me to hit you."

Misumi's face fell hearing this as he began to constrict around Zaku even tighter then, ready to crush him while keeping his arms pin. Seeing this, Zaku smirk increased as he concentrated chakra to his arms before he used another Zankuha. The result was Zaku rocketing up into the air with Misumi gripping him before hitting the ceiling. Misumi had no choice to let go as he took most of the blow as Zaku turned in mid air using his Zankuha once more. The two hit the ground with a thud causing the ground to crack were they landed.

Zaku slowly got up as Misumi was on his hands and knees coughing. Seeing his opportunity to end the battle here and now, Zaku held both his hands out to execute his higher form of Zankuha, Zankukyokuha. Putting most of his chakra into the attack, he was prepared to fire the blast when Misumi realized what he was doing. Using his unhinged body, he stretched his arm out towards Zaku just as he fired the highly concentrated blast of air at him and gripped his ankle. He flung back into the wall from the force of the air waves, but Zaku went with him and slammed into the wall besides him.

Looking at two more craters, Genma checked both of them and began the count down to see if either would get up. Once he reached ten, he could only shake his head and raise his hands. "Due to double knockout, neither Misumi nor Zaku will be heading to the finals."

In his disguise, Orochimaru could only shake his head. While he knew neither had much skill as he had to experiment on them, but he was slightly upset that neither of his experimental shinobi made it to the next room. Sighing lightly, he leaned against the wall as he looked towards Kin. Maybe she would advance proving the sound was far better then the leaf. Then again, he knew four were going and four out of ten was good, but five out ten was much better.

Naruto had jumped down and brought Zaku back up to the stands as he was coming to and shook his head at him. When Zaku came to, he cursed out loud seeing the look of his fellow sound teammates. "Damn, I lost didn't I?"

"No, it ended in a draw." Dosu answered in his normal voice while voicing his disproval of his teammates defeat.

Zaku shook his head lightly and sighed deeply as he shakily stood up. Once more he had failed Orochimaru and hearing from the others about what happened when they failed, he shuddered lightly. Before he could dive too deeply into his thoughts, he felt two hands on his shoulders. Looking back, he saw both Kin and Naruto as they smiled lightly at him. Kin knowing him the longest spoke. "Don't worry Zaku. You forget; things are going to change over the next month.”

Naruto nodded in agreement knowing that after the invasion, both Konoha and Oto would be united into one. While he was unsure who would become the Hokage he knew it would either be Jiraiya, Orochimaru or Tsunade. And from what he heard from the former and the latter, neither wanted the job for their own personal reasons. Seeing Zaku smirk, Naruto took his hand off as he left both alone as he walked over to Gaara and Yugito. He would have leaned on the railing and looked up at the screen if Yugito hadn't interrupted him. "Hm, playing match maker are we?"

Blushing lightly for a moment, Naruto quickly regained his composure and waved her off. "No, but if works that's all well and good for me. Besides, why are you interested? You want me to set you up with someone?"

Seeing her huff blush heavily at his hinting he bit his lip as she turned around and huffed indignantly. Both Gaara and Itachi looked mildly amused at her reaction knowing what exactly she was thinking when Naruto hinted at. Shaking their heads, they noticed the screen had stopped and looked up to see who was fighting next as the group was slimming down.

Nara Shikamaru vs. Aburame Shino

A loud groan was heard as Shikamaru noticed his name on the board. And it was worse as he knew he was facing someone he could not defeat on his own. In fact, the clans of Konoha until the Uchiha were wiped out had a balance to it. An Aburame could beat a Nara of similar skill, a Nara could defeat a Hyuuga, a Hyuuga could defeat an Akimichi, an Akimichi could defeat a Yamanaka, a Yamanaka could defeat an Uchiha, mostly because of their over inflated egos and most Yamanaka's ability to exploit the mind, and an Uchiha could defeat an Aburame. To make it worse, Shikamaru knew Shino was the only one in their class that could rival him in raw intelligence.

Shino was thinking along the same lines as he walked down to the eroding arena while Shikamaru continued leaning against the railing, thinking about quitting. Shikato noticed this, but knew what his son was thinking and just like his son; he believed the fight was troublesome. Though that didn't mean he wasn't going to let his son forfeit as he raised his hand. So with a quick kick to his rear, he sent Shikamaru tumbling into the arena.

Lying on the ground, Shikamaru muttered troublesome and was thinking about staying put until he was counted out. Of course he was going to get away with this when Genma stamped on his foot making the young genius jump up in pain. Walking between the two as Shikamaru hoped on one foot, Genma raised both his hands. "Since both combatants are ready, let the next match begin."

Shikamaru cursed lightly hearing this as he really didn't want to fight, but seeing that he had no choice to now he was going to. As he suspected, Shino had let his kikai surround him as he waited for Shikamaru to make the first move. Knowing that he was waiting for him to do, Shikamaru threw a kunai towards him before using his Kage Mane to do just that. Shino knowing what Shikamaru was planning jumped to the middle of the arena to stay away from the shadows. Not backing down for a second, he created a clone of himself with his kikai and used them to attack him to allow him to find and opening to attack him with.

Just as he figured, Shikamaru caught his Mushi Bunshin with his Kage Mane, but he also noticed him slowly beginning to back towards the shadows near the walls knowing that his best bet was to stick to them. Seeing this, Shino commanded his bugs to swarm towards him from all sides just as a kunai thrown at his clone was caught before both Shikamaru and his clone threw their kunai at him. Jumping to the side, he avoided the kunai when he noticed all his kikai being stopped by hundreds of shadow lines spreading from Shikamaru. Knowing this was draining him quickly, he was about to rush in and end the battle when he noticed he couldn't move. His eyes widened in surprise seeing a shadow connecting to him from behind.

Shikamaru smirked lightly as his chakra drained from him quickly as he was using far too much to stop the majority of the kikai from reaching him while the ones that did had begun draining his chakra. He knew he wouldn't last very much longer, but he also knew that he couldn't end this battle with anything he had. Turning to Genma, Shikamaru raised his hand. "I forfeit the match."

Genma and everyone on the sidelines looked stunned. Shikamaru had trapped Shino even at the cost of letting some of his kikai through. Then he just gave up and let Shino win. Wanting to know this, Shino asked just that. "Why do you forfeit?"

"Because I'm almost out of chakra. Sure, I have a move or two that probably would hurt you, but not take you out of the fight. And after doing them, I would be drained of my chakra ending the fight anyways as you and your kikai would be free. No matter which way you look at it, I would lose this fight. If I had someone with me, I wouldn't have had to but this is a one on one battle so I'm just out of luck. That's why I forfeit." Shikamaru answered as he released his Kage Mane as Shino called back his kikai, slightly humbled hearing his reasoning. Genma agreeing with his reasoning as well and gave the fight to Shino as both headed up to the balcony.

From the other side, Naruto was once more impressed by another leaf shinobi. Shikamaru's intelligence was far beyond what he had thought and his tactic were quite good for who he was up against. Then again, that could be a down side when he tried to convince him to join their cause. Remembering that Chouji was his best friend, he made a mental note to gain the young Akimichi's trust before going after the Nara. He noticed the others looking at him oddly. Trying to figure out why, he spoke up. "Hey, why are you guys looking at me?"

Seeing them point to the screen, he noticed whose name was on the board.

Namikaze Ryuu Naruto vs. Urufu Daisuke

Not knowing who he was fighting, he looked over everyone and recalled their names before realizing that the only one left that could fight and was male was the grass shinobi with the two off colored eyes. His left was eye was yellow in color while his right was blood red, just like Rayne's. Strapped to his waist was a katana on each side. He wore a shirt with black on the right half and yellow on the left while his pants were just plain black. His hair was a calm and straight and was a deep green in color. A small smirk graced Naruto's lips seeing how he was fighting. Now he could have a decent challenge and be able to recover the other eye of Beliar.

Not waiting to hear what Itachi was about to say, Naruto jumped into the arena with a grin on his face as Daisuke leapt into the arena immediately after he did. Itachi cursed mentally knowing that Naruto had already learned that his red eye was Beliar, but didn't know that he had at least one more piece inside him, if not more. And if he had one in each of his limbs, Naruto couldn't hold back at the limit he was at. 'Dammit Naruto! I just hope it is only one piece within him. I know we haven't found any of the limbs bones yet, so I'm very sure either he has more then two or the Akatsuki could have the rest of them.’

Noticing Itachi's tension, Yugito looked over towards the kid she knew had Beliar's eye. If he had just the eye, he wouldn't be a problem and Naruto could easily pick him off as it would be like an Uchiha not used to fighting someone with speed. But from seeing Itachi's face, she knew that wasn't all he had. Not wanting to be left in the dark, she was about to ask him but was beat to the punch by Gaara. "Why do you seem worried?"

Itachi sighed as he knew he was putting of bad vibes at the moment and figured they would be able to pick up on them. "I'm not worried that Naruto can't win, I'm just worried that Naruto might have to break his limit. I know this kid has the other eye of Beliar, but I know he has at least one other and possibly more."

Both remembering the limit that was put on Naruto for the Chunin Exams nodded in understanding. While he could break it, it would require some concentration and a hell of a lot of energy. Overhearing them, Orochimaru nodded as it made sense to limit Naruto's power for the exams as he would have been overly strong. Not that he already wasn't, just he wouldn't be beatable if he was going all out.

Over on the other balcony, many of the council members were waiting for this battle, hoping the demon would finally be exterminated. While they weren't happy that one of their own wasn't going to do the job, it made little difference in the end. The only few that were indifferent were Chouza, Shibi and Shikato and the former and the latter were the only ones that were silently rooting for Naruto. Tsume was the first to break the silence among all of them. "About time that demon gets what he deserves."

All of their attention was brought to their children as almost each one of them huffed and/or shook their head. The only ones that didn't were Kiba, Sai and Shino. Ino, Lee and Neji didn't count as they were the only among the rookies not back up from their fight. Each of the council members looked at the other six to explain. Muttering troublesome once more, Shikamaru spoke for the group. "I highly doubt that Naruto will lose this fight. In the forest, he managed to beat Gai's team, Team Seven and my team at the same time. I also heard from Hinata that he had single handily took them down as well with the utmost ease."

Most of the council paled hearing this except for those that had asked their children what had happened in the forest. Sasuke shook his head lightly looking at each of them before continuing on for the lazy genius. "Not only that, it was quite clear that he wasn't going all out on us. Against all nine of us, he didn't even us his blades but never once did we lay a hit on him. The closest thing to hitting him was when Shikamaru caught him in the Kage Mane only for him to break out a second later."

As he finished, all but Chouza was extremely surprised. Shikato was only surprised to hear that he broke out of the Kage Mane with tremendous ease while Chouza wasn't surprise as he heard his son talk about what he knew of the fight. The rest after regaining their composure were gritting their teeth in rage wanting to know how the demon had become so powerful. They were going to have to keep a close eye on him during the one month break if what their children were saying was true.

On the arena floor, Genma was looking forward to this fight as he heard both stories of what happened in the forest and was interested to see how good Naruto actually was. While he knew nothing of the skills that the grass gennin possessed, he had put him near the card deck before giving it to Kabuto. Shaking that thought out of his head for now, not trusting Inoishi not to scanning his mind at the moment, he looked over the two gennin. Seeing that they were ready, he raised his hands. "Let the eleventh match of the preliminaries, Namikaze Ryuu Naruto vs. Urufu Daisuke begin!"

Naruto's blade sprang into place as he slid into stance as he waited for Daisuke to make the first move. He wasn't surprised when Daisuke had pulled his katanas out of their sheaves as the only way to block his blade was with another blade. Just as he was about to move to begin the battle, Daisuke lunged forward with far more speed then he believed he possessed. He barely was able to parry the blow before he began his onslaught and began slashing at him while shuffling his feet seeing that his opponent was trying to gain position on him.

He was slightly surprised seeing that Daisuke was able to keep up with his movements. He knew that with Beliar's eye he would be able to see his attacks, but being able to keep up with them was surprising him. Honestly he thought the battle be over quickly as the eye wouldn't have been able to hold it's own against him as the container wouldn't, but apparently he was. And that meant that he either had trained to the extreme, which for his age he still would only be a jounin in ability and he could kill jounin in an instant, or he had more pieces of Beliar within him. He instantly picked the second option knowing that only Gaara and Yugito could keep up with him while he was limited.

To the onlookers, the battle was nothing but a blur of movements with clangs be heard some many times that it seemed to be one ongoing clang. Even the more experienced could only see their bodies as the blades moved so quickly that they only got a flash of silver before another clang was heard. To each of the gennin besides Gaara and Yugito moving on were shocked as they couldn't believe that two at this level were only gennin. Even Sasuke had to activate his Sharingan to keep up.

Orochimaru was smirking seeing that he was one of the few in the room that could keep up with ease. While he didn't know the limit was at, he still could tell that he was easily an S-class shinobi from his abilities. While he knew that truthfully if Naruto was going all out that he was a SS-rank shinobi but only a low S-class vampire/demon. In that regard he was jealous of Naruto as he had gain so much power within such a short time frame, but he knew the reason so there was nothing that could be done. Now he could only watch the only existing dual half breed fight a well match opponent.

Ducking under a slash from Daisuke, Naruto quickly spun around and kicked him in the gut before he could counter. Using his moment form his spin, he slashed the knuckles on his right hand as he skidded back. Not giving him a second, he activated his Super Speed and was about to rush in and finish the battle when Daisuke regained his balanced and to his surprise threw the sword at him. Once again being caught off guard as only Itachi, Gob, Kyuubi and Rayne had ever been able to move normally when using his Super Speed; he was barely able to reflect the sword before catching the hilt. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he flashed over next to him and slashed at him with a frenzy assault with both his blades and the katana.

Cut marks were quickly racking up on Daisuke as only due to his eye was he able to keep up with Naruto's pace as it increased even further. But every time he slashed with the katana, there was an opening to strike. It was a very small window, but it was there so he had to time it perfectly. Closing his real eye, he focused on the eye given to him in the ritual before lashing out. This strike caught Naruto off guard, but in a flash he was behind Daisuke and slashed the back of his shoulder and his lower back.

Daisuke stumbled forward as Naruto threw his katana at his mid section as he turned in mid fall. Daisuke barely managed to deflect it with his katana before flipping in mid air and landing on his feet before catching his deflected katana. Naruto smirked seeing this as he slid back into his stance and beckoned him to come as he was enjoying this fight. He was planning on extracting at least his eye, but as for now he couldn't do it as he left his pack up on the balcony.

Growling lightly in his throat, Daisuke had no clue what was going on. He had trained since he was able to walk to receive the power the ritual had gave him, yet he was still losing to this kid. He was as strong, if not stronger then their kage yet his opponent was easily over powering him. Not only that, but he was using this weird speed jutsu that was nothing but a flash to his normal eye. Only hearing of a jutsu like in tails he heard of the Yondaime Hokage and hearing that this boy was his son, he put two and two together and realized he knew his father technique. 'There is only one thing I can do then. I must release all the power these implants gave me.'

The chakra around him began to spike and became visible around him as purple and black streaks began to flow through it and quickly doubled in size almost surpassing everyone in the room chakra reserve. Naruto looked on wasn't fazed as he looked Daisuke dead in the eye having felt much greater before and knowing that his full power completely outmatched it. As the aura around him began to fade, Naruto smirked as he began flaring his youki and a green aura flared around him that was equal to Daisuke before it grew larger till it was obviously out larger then his own.

From the side lines, every dog on the balcony had begun trembling as the energy was extremely familiar to them as it was like their own. Akamaru was bowing lightly as he growled to the other dogs whose eyes widened. Only Tsume managed to catch what he had said as both Hana and Kiba were too shocked to notice. Hearing what the small dog said had made her face ghostly pale as she knew her clan roots and if the boy had indeed become what Akamaru had said, he was a superior to their clan. And adding the fact that all five dogs there would bowing, she was extremely sure it was.

Daisuke's eyes shone with shock and anger as the aura around Naruto died away yet still lingered. He was shocked that the blonde had that much more chakra then he had, but angered due to that even with his enhanced power after the ritual, he still wasn't the strongest around. Letting his rage get the best of him, he fazed out of existence before appearing in front of Naruto with both his katana ready to strike. To everyone's surprise, he made no attempt to dodge as the blades cut into his flesh. Not seeing him flinch made Daisuke's rage increased further as he began slashing him erratically. Still Naruto made no attempt to block as he allowed him to cut into his flesh.

"What is Naruto doing?! Is he trying to get himself killed?!" Yugito yelled as she watched on in fright as Naruto took ever strike without wincing in pain.

No one else could blame her as they didn't know the point of taking each strike. Only Gaara seemed unfazed as he watched as he had a slight idea of what he was doing. Itachi quickly noticed this and flat out asked Gaara. "Do you know what he's up to?"

Gaara seeing that he was being asked nodded as he did, but really didn't want to explain. So using as few words as possible to answer him, he spoke. "He's testing out a new technique."

Itachi narrowed his eyes hearing this along with Yugito not liking the idea that Naruto was testing a new technique in the mid of battle. Yugito was the first one to speak her concerns. "That idiot! Doesn't he know if it fails it could cost him his life?!"

Shrugging lightly, Gaara continued watching the battle as he knew the repercussions as well, but didn't doubt Naruto for a moment.

Getting annoyed and pissed at the lack of reaction from all the slash he had hit Naruto with, Daisuke slammed his fist into his face before delivering a kick to his stomach, sending him into the wall. Not even allowing him to slide down, he threw both his katana towards Naruto and drove through the middle of his stomach and chest. Not seeing Naruto move as his eyes were closed, Daisuke began panting beginning to believe he had one.

Everyone above looked on in excite, for the council members, or in horror, everyone else, at what had just happened. The only thing keeping Yugito from jumping into the arena was Gaara's sand. Itachi wasn't doing much better but he could tell that Naruto was still alive meaning that he was executing this new technique. Whatever it was, it better have work or when he went to heaven or hell he would beat Naruto senseless then kill him again. Seeing that Naruto hadn't moved, Genma bit his lip as he was about to call the battle. He hadn't expected Naruto to display his chakra like that then not even attack, but now there wasn't much difference.

As soon as he begun to raise his hand to call the match Naruto's eyes opened as he looked at Daisuke with his Inu eyes, chilling the grass gennin to the bone. His hands quickly reached to the swords and everyone's surprise he ripped them out without some much a wound on him. In fact, none of the cut and gashes that Daisuke had inflicted upon him were visible. It was as if none of it had happened. The only thing that showed it did was the cuts to his clothes. Looking directly at Daisuke, Naruto spoke in a soft tone but one that could be heard by all.

"You are nothing. Your power is artificial. Each piece of him within you proves that. Each piece taints you further each day. As long as you keep them within you, you will turn into something you'll despise. Sooner or later will come a time where you will be called on. But will it be you or the demi-god within you. If it him, you'll never be able to defeat me. I am Naruto, the prayer to the light and destroyer of the darkness."

As his words echoed through the room, everyone had different emotions flowing through him. Itachi was pride and respect while Yugito was relief and slight anger. Most of the council was confused as to why he would say something like he did while the very few that understood he wasn't the demon knew his words came from his heart. The rest of the gennin were still too shocked to have understood the full meaning of what he said, but still knew something was off.

Daisuke backed up in horror knowing what Naruto had meant. He knew about the ritual and somehow knew the downside for their power. He was slowly being overcome by a will that wasn't his own and he no longer cared. In fact, he hadn't even cared when the Uchiha had killed his ex-girlfriend and teammate. But know that he did, his anger grew but not at him. It was at himself for not jumping into the battle and trying to save her. Dropping to the ground, tears began to slide down his cheeks.

Naruto sighed lightly, but he knew his words did just what he knew they would. He could tell the girl before had a bound with him, but something was shrouding it, keeping it from showing on his end. The pieces of Beliar were influencing him. A human mind could only take so much pressure that was exerted by the pieces of Beliar. Three was the max someone could have with cracking. Any more and they would eventually lose control of themselves. He knew he had four as his Energy Sight could see clearly the resonance of Beliar's power.

Sighing lightly, he was about to turn to Genma to call the match when he heard Daisuke cry in pain. Turning around, he noticed that blood was covering his entire hand and not having seen what just happened, he was about to move to help.

"NARUTO DON'T!"

Itachi's cry fell on deaf ears as Naruto grabbed his hand thinking he had slit his wrist and took the item he was holding out only to see his wrist wasn't slit. Looking somewhat confused, he looked at what he took before his eyes widened in horror as he saw Beliar's right eye.

Before he could drop it, his hand began trembling as he gripped his wrist as he try to keep the eye from enforcing it's will upon him. He gritted his teeth as the eye was over powering him to the point that he had just about released the limit when his hand was suddenly on his eye. Naruto's scream of pain sounded through the building as he fell to his knees as blood began seeping from his right eye that was destroyed before being replaced by his new and unwanted eye. The other eye of Beliar.

Genma looked on, not sure what was going on but he had noticed that Daisuke had passed out from blood lose from pulling out his own eye. Not sparing another second, he called the match. "Winner, Namikaze Ryuu Naruto! Now get some medics down here!"

Itachi and Orochimaru were down besides Naruto in an instant as medics rushed to Daisuke and began to calm the bleeding down. The few that were completely unbiased in their job and were slightly glad to see the son of the Yondaime back were besides Itachi and Orochimaru. "Is there anything we can do?"

Seeing the look from Itachi, Orochimaru went through a few of his own personal hand seals as he formed a high powered genjutsu around Itachi's eyes to keep anyone from seeing, even Hiashi if he tried to look. Naruto was still twitching and whimpering in pain and neither could blame him, his eye had just imploded before another forcefully took its place. Having heard the story from Rayne when her left eye was replaced, Itachi knew that he had to numb the pain Naruto was in as Rayne said herself the pain was horrible beyond words. Knowing the genjutsu was over his eyes, he activated his Sharingan before using one of his clan's jutsu to put Naruto into a genjutsu induced sleep.

Sighing lightly, Itachi lifted Naruto bridal style before turning to Orochimaru. "When the matches are decided, tell me who Naruto’s opponent is."

Orochimaru nodded lightly as Itachi disappeared in a plum of smoke as the rest of the medics had rushed Daisuke off the arena. Jumping back onto the balcony, he noticed that Yugito was extremely pale after witnessing what had just happened. Not only that, he was very sure that the girl was worried over Naruto well being and wanted to leave and check up on him. He had half a mind to tell her to do just that saying he could handle it here, but noticing the girl's posture and balled fist he didn't want to be the one to tell her that. He rather liked the ability to talk normally.

Once everyone had vacated the arena, Genma still looking confused looked up at the two balconies before speaking. "Will Tsuchi Kin and Juli Tenten come down?"

Kin was still in shell shock after what had happened. Seeing Naruto being cut shreds like that had set hers off and everything that happened afterwards was beyond her. But add in that he was screaming at the end, she was quite worried that her nerves would get in the way of her fighting. Tenten was in the same boat as that was something that was unheard of and bone chilling.

As the two girls made it to the center of the ring, the only sounds were coming from the murmuring council members, not knowing what just happened but were planning on asking the grass gennin what he had done. Genma growled lightly as he could hear them and didn't care right now that they noticed him. He was getting sick and tired of them and wanted to show them how badly they were going to get their asses kicked. But reigning in his emotions, he looked over the two girls before sighing out loud. He really didn't want to start this fight, but he had no choice as he raised both his arms and started the final match of the preliminaries.

Once his hands had moved, both Kin's and Tenten's hands were on their pouches and pulling out senbon to counter one another. In truth, Tenten was countering each thrown Kin made knowing that there were strings attached to the senbon. Not only that, but she was beginning to throw kunai and shuriken at the girl trying to get her out of the funk she was in. While she could understand as she had just witnessed their strongest gennin go done from something no one understood, she wanted a decent fight.

Unfortunately Kin was too out of it to notice the weapons till the last second as they scraped her. Realizing she was in battle, Kin grabbed a hand full of senbon before throwing them in Tenten's general direction. The weapon's mistress pulled out a sword from a scroll before spinning it around her, blocking each of the senbon successfully. Cutting the strings to the ones that had embedded themselves into the ground, the weapon mistress charged Kin as she attempted to jump back, only to run into the wall. Tenten was on her in an instant and held her sword to her throat. "You've lost. You let what just happen affect you."

Kin gulped lightly but she knew it was the truth. She honestly was freaked out by the last half of Naruto's fight that she was still shaking from it. From his position, Genma nodded as well as he gave the match to Tenten as she pulled her sword away from Kin's throat. Once she put the blade down and after all the finalist besides Naruto were called down, Genma spoke once more. "The preliminaries are over. Everyone that had one today will be moving on to the finals in one month."

"The reason we are holding it in a month is that you have each seen the others abilities, so now you are given the time to prepare and come up with next jutsu and strategies. Not only this, but this gives us time to prepare for the daimyos that will be watching and judging your performances. Based on their and your village’s leader or leaders’ decision, you may or may not get promoted. But before you can begin to train for the upcoming month, your matches will be decided. Now do to pass complaints about how we chose the finals matches, we will be doing it electronically with the electric board."

Seeing no one question what he had said, Genma sighed before turning to Hana and nodding. Hana nodded back, quite pleased that she got to see Naruto in pain once more, gave the order to operate the board. It once again began to randomly go through the names until it landed on a set of names before changing. Once it was finished, the order was written on a board behind them.

Namikaze Ryuu Naruto vs. Inuzuka Kiba

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Yakushi Kabuto

Aburame Shino vs. Kinta Dosu

Hyuuga Hinata vs. Nii Yugito

Sabaku no Gaara vs. Tenten

Genma nodded at the names, refraining fro smirking seeing the first match as he looked over to see Hana's dismay. Shaking that thought from his head, he turned to the gennin. "Alright, remember the order you are fighting in. One month from now, you will go to the Konoha Coliseum at exactly ten o'clock. If you are late for you match, you will be automatically disqualified. Remember who you are fight and remember how they fought today as it might help you to know how you will have to fight. With that said, you are dismissed."

As soon as he said the word dismissed, Yugito was gone in a swirl of lighting while Gaara disappeared into a swirl of sand. Orochimaru could only sigh at the two. Naruto was their friend and brother. And from what he saw from the two blondes, maybe even more. But then again, he wasn't the best judge of love. After all, he still was single.

---------------------------

It had been a while since Naruto had felt like this. In fact the last time he felt like this was when he ran into her as he searched for Beliar's skull with Yugito. It was something neither of them suspected and neither could contemplate. After their fight he had been left beaten and would have died that night if he hadn't transformed and bond that woman to him. What a coincidence now that he was trying to find her while he was knocked out.

While he had no clue how he was able to leave his body while he was out cold he had a feeling it dealt with his sealed off dark side and his Soul Possession technique. For the most part it was useless for him as it could control targets considerably weaker then him he was able to split a piece of his soul and use it to possess someone. But it never made sense to him to be able to travel this far without losing a piece of his soul forever. Shaking his head, he continued towards his destination as he knew she hadn't left the cave he had placed her in as she had a decent storage of food.

After a few moments, he arrived at the cave to see a very oddly colored woman with extended black claws. Her skin was mostly blue but there was parts colored black that seemed to shift and make some sort of seals of their own. Her dark hair was in spikes that reached to her shoulder blades. Even now he had a hard time looking at her due to his boyish nature. Mainly because she had no clothes on. But nothing showed unless she willed it. Before he could even speak the woman noticed him and growled lightly. "What do you want boy? I just got healed thanks to you but nothing can repair what you did to my soul! Oh wait; our souls. I forgot that."

Naruto narrowed his ghostly eyes at her as he refrained from wincing in pain. The unfortunate side effect was that he still felt the pain his body was in and it wasn't in the best of shape. He reminded himself to test out techniques with his own clones before using them and to figure out what the hell happened to his eye as it was burning like crazy. Putting that off for now, Naruto glared at the woman in front of his ghostly appearance that decided to bare her body towards him. "I have a job for you and I know you won't like it." He could see her anger already rising but she did nothing to him as there was nothing to do. "I want you to teach a human in Konoha."

"No fucking way will I do that! We vampires exist to hunt humans you know that!" The woman yelled at him as she refrained from attacking him knowing the consequences to well.

Holding his ground as it was partially the truth, Naruto looked over the vampiric woman in front of him. "Be that as it may, humanity has grown much stronger during the time it took for your body to regenerate. While only the strongest could stand up to you in strength, both my kaa-san, the demons and I keep the balance as without humans we would have no purpose, or did you forget the first of our kinds were once human. We were give the strength we have to make sure humanity doesn't fall to greater threats then ourselves or have you forgotten that Ferril?"

The female vampire hissed loudly at the dual breed as he finished talking. She was not one to show kindness to anyone, especially human. "The only reason you believe that is that you have my half-sisters flesh within you. And with that reeking odor that surrounds you the demons that surround you must teach you that tripe as well. Humans exist as a food source, nothing more then cattle! We vampires and demons are to feed on them as they are a vital food source as if they die out; we have nothing to feed on. Get your facts in line boy."

Growling lightly, Naruto reigned in his emotions as he glared at Ferril. Seeing her drop down in pain he realized that he didn't have full control of himself and focused solely on that. After a few moments, Ferril stood straight and glared at him as she panted lightly. Putting the bond aside for now, Naruto wasn't going to cave in. "Ferril, no matter what you say you will train the human of my choice. He has a vicious temperament like yours and has no pity for the weak. I believe you can show him a thing or two as we both know your time is running short as my kaa-san will learn you are still alive and she will hunt you down if I cannot convince her not to."

Ferril turned quiet after Naruto's statement. She knew her half-sister would find her sooner or later and from what she heard of other vampires and demons, Rayne had no equal. And seeing that she lost to the boy in front of her, she knew that she would die at her sister's hands if they met again. "How do I know you'll keep her from attacking me when I'm within the walls of the village?"

Naruto sighed lightly as he shook his head as he wished that night never occurred. "Because if I don't, we both know the consequences for me. I rather not have that happen so I'll do everything in my power to keep her from attacking you even if it means that I have to transform to bye you time to escape."

Nodding lightly, Ferril stood up as she could tell it was almost time for night fall. "Alright then boy, I will train this... Human. But in turn I would like a safe place to sleep that is better suited for inhabitance without being bothered, to have a sealed off place to train that the dhampir cannot enter and a victim to feed on once a week as the hunting here is mediocre at best. Finally I would like to know the name of the rodent I am to train."

He could only nod at her request as her requests were things he was already planning. "It will be done as its only morning here. By the time you reach the forest it should be night fall, so follow my presence as I will be at the grounds which only Dosu, you and I can enter. Now if that is all, my body is calling to me."

Seeing Ferril nod, Naruto's ghostly body vanished as it headed back to his body. Once it vanished, the vampire growled lightly before slamming her hand into the cave wall leaving a perfect hole in it. Having no choice in the matter as the boy could do far worse to her then what he had did to her moments ago, she slowly walked out of the cave only to see a few Turned looking around for a feed. A small smile graced her lips as she would have a chance to vent some anger before heading out.

---------------------------

Slowly opening his eyelids, Naruto found it hard to breathe as he found something hard laying on his chest and his stomach. He was caught off guard by this as this had never happened before and the fact that he could only see out of one eye and that there was a blob of white on his chest and a blob of yellow on his stomach. After the blurriness went away from his only seeable eye, his slight shock left him as he was stunned seeing the heads belonged to a sleeping Gobi and Yugito. While it was a rare sight to see either to do something like this, it was a miracle that they were actually only inches apart from touching heads. Also he was afraid as if they woke up at the same time he would get in the middle of it.

As if acting on his fear, exactly that happened as the two females rose from his torso. If it wasn't for their grogginess from waking up, they would have noticed each other but it didn't seem like the blonde noticed. Gobi however did, but she said nothing as if there was an unspoken truce between the two as they turned to Naruto. As they did he began to see everyone else in the room. He winced mentally seeing both Kyuubi and Rayne and knew that getting Ferril in was going to take a miracle to go unnoticed by both of them. Not only that but seeing the looks on both of their, Itachi's and Nibi's faces told him one thing, they were angry at him but also extremely worried. "Okay, I know you all would be pissed at my newest technique, but what the hell is with this?! And why is my eye covered in bandages?!"

Everyone winced at the volume of his voice. No one seemed to really want to say anything and really weren't going to till he realized what happened on his own. Knowing Naruto better then to figure out what was going on with no help, Gobi sighed softly before pulling at the bandages from his right eye. "Koishii, do you remember your fight with the grass boy?"

Seeing him beginning to remember it, she sighed softly as Yugito continued for her. "When you thought he had attempted to end his own life, you took something from him. Do you remember what it was?"

The blood drained from Naruto's face as he almost turned the same shade as his ghostly body. As the bandage was completely taken off pain racked his body as his vision began zooming in and out rapidly while time seemed to be slowing down as he absorbed all the information that it saw. Not only that, he was able to hear people way out in the distance. To make things worse the burning sensation increased each and every second it zoomed in and out. Gritting his teeth, he knew to shut off the energy flowing to his eye in an attempt to stop it and as he attempted to do it he found he couldn't.

Soon as he growled out in pain, he felt someone grip his shoulders while another grabbed his hand. The pain racking through his body was getting to become too much for him to handle as he saw darkness beginning to shroud his vision. His head began throbbing as it felt like it wanted to explode from the pressure being put on it was too much for it to handle. In attempt to dull the pain, he began focusing all his attention on the two attempting to help him. After a few more moments, the pain died down as the eye zoomed back to its normal vision.

Taking a few deep breaths to get it under control, he looked forward to see Gobi withdrawing her hands from his shoulders as Yugito took her hand away from his. Putting the strangeness of their actions out of his mind for now, he spoke in a not so quiet as he rubbed his right temple. "What in the name of the fucked up gods was that?! That hurt worse then Itachi's Tsukiyomi when he has a bad day!"

Itachi ignored the glares sent at him by all the females in the room as he was quite use to their looks. Looking at Naruto's now crimson eye, he sighed lightly before leaning back against the wall. "That was Beliar's right eye connecting itself to your nervous system and adjusting itself to your body. I put you in a genjutsu sleep hoping it would do it in your sleep so it wouldn't be as painful but apparently it needs to be open and an active mind for it to work."

As Naruto heard what Itachi said he looked down as what he thought was confirmed. He had taken Beliar's eye from Daisuke thinking he had harmed himself, which was true. Sighing lightly to himself as he changed his true eye to Kyuubi's crimson to match his new one, he looked over to the mirror and nodded. It was close enough that most people wouldn't give it a second look. Turning towards the rest, he shook his head lightly as they were all hovering over him, except for Yonbi as she was still nervous, but only because she was in a new area. "Sorry for worrying all of you. But there has to be another reason why all of you are here?"

Rayne nodded lightly as she looked at Gobi and Kyuubi. "Yes there is. As you knew already, I would be helping with the invasion to make sure it succeeds thanks to Orochimaru developing a jutsu that will render the sun's rays useless in a certain range. Well it turns out it's a much shorter range then he wanted so I will be limited to taking care of the council members with him, Jiraiya and Tsunade. Because of this to make sure that the invasion is successful, I called in for Gobi and Kyuubi as both are more then willing to help. The only reason for Nibi and Yonbi coming as there is no one to defend them at home."

Nibi hissed lightly at the last part but she knew better then to argue that she was no longer capable of fighting on her own. Once she had recovered from the injuries Naruto’s dark side inflicted upon her, she had lost the capability of battling almost all together. They had tried everything to fix it so that she could fight but too much of her soul was taken from her. After finally realizing that she couldn't, she settled herself down and became much calmer then normal. Sighing to herself as she rubbed her stomach lightly, she turned to Itachi before turning to Yonbi and sighing. She didn't like it as the two were getting close, but hearing her ex-vessel and her only friend agreeing to what they did last night she had to at least give her a shot.

Naruto nodded in understanding as he knew there had to be some sort of jutsu that could allow Rayne to walk in the day light without hurting herself as the invasion was in the day. Slowly stretching himself, he was about to get up when he was pushed back on the bed by the Inu and the cat hanyou as they began glaring daggers at him. "Um, I have things to do... UGH!" Air rushed out of his lungs as two elbows were brought to his stomach by two very angry female with abnormal strength. While it was not strong enough to hurt him for more then a moment, their point was made. Regaining his breath, he glared at the two. "What was that about?!"

He was beginning to wonder if questioning them hitting him was a good thing as their anger grew even further as everyone began backing away from the three of them. Being the angrier of the two, Gobi spoke first. "What was that about? What were you thinking?! Trying such a technique with testing it first is insane you dumb shit! You could have been killed if it hadn't work! Do you even think about what would happen us if it had failed?! Not only that, but you test it out right after spending two months recovering from fatal wounds from a fight you won't talk to us about!"

Everyone in the room could tell that her anger was increasing and her words were about to get much more vicious. Before she could even start, Yugito placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her head as her anger was satisfied with the look of fright and guilt on Naruto's face. To everyone’s surprise the Inu female calmed down and nodded lightly as she realized she was about to go on the deep end. Taking a deep breath and turning back to Naruto with a serious but much calmer glare, she spoke. "Now tell us, what were you thinking when you did that yesterday?"

Sighing lightly wishing that Rayne wasn't here as he knew she was about to get pissed at what he said, he looked both Gobi and Yugito in the eyes before answering. "When I was still recovering, I found this book on vampiric techniques so I decided to look at them. While I knew I shouldn't as it was in the forbidden section of the library, I had to know what was all in there." He winced under the extreme pressure he felt coming from his mother figure as she heard this and knew it was going to get worse as he continued. "While most of them were things I couldn't use, there was a few that intrigued me and seemed to match my abilities. This was one of the few that had no name and listed as unusable as only one vampire ever could use it."

"Her name was Ferril apparently. She had the ability to negate any damage to her instantly and continue fighting just as hard before. Not only that but it was documented once that she survived from being thrown off a building into broad day light with a knife wound in her heart which would kill any vampire in a second. The only down side was that it cost a considerable amount of banpaia ryoku, which was something she didn't have to worry about as she had more then enough. Many attempts to duplicate it over the past three centuries have failed and the user had died from it. But I learned something, it said it was a family only technique and after doing some research I learned that kaa-san and Ferril were related meaning it was possible that I could use it and might I add it worked quite well as I'm still here." Naruto finished as his eyes were locked with Rayne's.

The said dhampir was proud and pissed at the same exact time at her adopted son. Part of her wanted to strangle him for looking into her section and on a book that she wrote with a few vampiric scholars while the other was quite happy that he went so far to learn something that no one knew of besides her. Reigning in her emotions, she spoke in a stern voice. "Didn't I tell you to stay out of there? There are far worse books in there other then that one. And how the hell did you open it? I sealed the damn thing so no one else could open it."

Naruto smirked lightly as he looked at his red haired mother before shaking his head. "Simple really. The seal you put on it is a basic one as it’s a blood seal. The only way to open it is to drop blood with the user or one with similar DNA to the user. Not only that but I did learn a lot about seals from the white haired pervert so I know more about seals in our house hold then any one. As for going in there, I am sorry but I was looking for something that would help me understand what attacked me that day as the rest of the library didn't help me whatsoever." He cursed lightly knowing that he spoke more then he should have as everyone looked at him questionably.

Being the first to put it together, Itachi spoke. "So you were looking through the forbidden library to find something on a technique that a vampire used on you. If that's true it would mean that there is another S-rank vampire on the loose that no one has known about." His attention turned to Rayne as his analytical mind began to churn. "Rayne, could it be possible that she had a daughter that maybe was seeking you out for revenge?"

Rayne shrugged her shoulders as she honestly didn't have the answer to that question. "I don't know. It is possible yes, but I can't see her acting like a slut and just doing some guy three hundred years ago. I do know that my half-sisters did have standards and pretty damn good ones when it came to men seeing that Ephemera and Severin were once a couple. Revenge would be a likely angle but I doubt it as there would be no way she would have known Naruto and I are related. It's most likely that they were after the same thing and fought over it and Naruto killed her after transforming into his dual stage."

Everyone nodded lightly and let the subject drop though both Gobi and Yugito were still pissed Naruto attempted a technique like that. Naruto mentally sighed in relief that no one was hounding him on why he didn't tell anyone this sooner and that they were thinking that it was just Ferril's daughter and not Ferril herself. Seeing that nothing else was holding him here, Naruto stood up and quickly placed on his blades catching everyone off guard. "Sorry, but like I said earlier, there are a few things I need to do today so if you don't mind, I'll be seeing you all later." Without waiting for anyone to reply, he was gone in an instant leaving the door open.

Yugito growled lightly and was about to case after when Gobi placed her hand on her shoulder causing everyone besides Nibi to look at them strange as this was definitely not normal. Looking up at the female Inu, Yugito tilted her head at her when Gobi spoke. "Relax child, koishii is still young and he happened to be a head strong male. Having him sit still is something we cannot due especially when he believes there is a job to do." Seeing Yugito understanding and nodding her head as she calmed down, Gobi motioned her head forward. "Now come, we have a few things to do before telling him."

With another nod, Yugito followed Gobi out of the room leaving the rest in confusion, not counting a sulking Nibi. Itachi, Kyuubi, Rayne and Yonbi were not exactly sure what was going on with the two and were about to follow to figure out when the latter three noticed the sulking demon. Seeing this, all three left leaving Itachi alone in the room with the two tailed cat. Not liking the situation as he didn't know what was wrong with her, he was about to follow their example when Nibi spoke.

"Itachi, we need to talk."

---------------------------

"Okay, how am I going to do this?" Naruto talked to himself as he began setting the barrier up around an extremely seclude spot in the forest. He doubted anyone would come to train there so it was the perfect place to set up his barriers. Luckily enough he did have some of Ferril's blood so he would be able to make it where she could enter without letting Rayne do the same. Once he finished the barrier, he nodded as he still had to collect a little blood from Dosu, but he could do that as he led him here. "Alright, that's finished. Now to make sure that she gets a hotel on the opposite side of town."

Thinking about that for a moment, he knew he wouldn't be able to do so on his own as mostly everyone recognized him. While illusions would work, he knew nothing other then basic ones that could easily be detected by nearby shinobi and he that with the chunin exams that there would be at least one shinobi at the hotels. So after another moment of thinking, he came up with an idea. He would go see Dosu first to tell him to rest as his trainer for the next month could only train him at night.

With a twist of air he disappeared as he headed into town. Reappearing in front of the hotel where the two teams were staying, he entered to see Orochimaru sipping on a cup of coffee before noticing him. Deciding to take down another bird with one stone, he turned to he snake sannin before speaking. "Hey Orochimaru, seeing that you are good at this I need your help." Seeing the snake sannin look at him oddly but nodding, Naruto sighed before continuing. "I need four people over the next month to sacrifice, preferably one each week."

Orochimaru nearly spit out the coffee he was drinking hearing this as he looked at the blonde hair dual breed in shock. While he knew that on occasion that he would have to feed, Naruto was not one to drain one of their essence without reason. With the confusion his request caused him, he had to clarify his reasoning. "And why exactly did you come to me for this? I know you can easily do this so what's stopping you?"

Naruto winced at the last part but he kept it from showing as he quickly answered him. "For many reasons really. One, you have a natural talent of finding people that no one would miss. Two, you use jutsu that require multiple sacrifices. Three, I need to keep this from Rayne or Kyuubi as I don't want either of them knowing what I'm doing and finally I need someone that knows the difference between or forces here in Konoha and our enemies."

While Orochimaru couldn't argue with his first two reasons and his later one, but the one about keeping Kyuubi and Rayne out of the loop was odd. The boy was raised by the two so unless he was doing something the two didn't approve of why would they need to not know of it. And not only that he knew both wouldn't have any problem with him feeding every now and then. He was all for promoting independence, but when the two parental figures could kill him with frightening ease he wasn't going to with hold whatever they wanted from him. Putting these thoughts together, Orochimaru spoke. "What exactly are you planning to do that neither needs to be informed of?"

Figuring that he was going to ask him that, Naruto answered him automatically. "It deals with Dosu's trainer for the month. She is a vampire that neither like very well but I trust enough not to harm him with anything other then training injuries... If he doesn't push her too far. She requested the sacrifices so I would like to keep her fed so she doesn't go kill some random person on the street. Finally, if both kaa-san or Kyuubi learn of her presence here they might kill her and I rather not have that happen as I gave her my word that I'll protect her once within the walls."

Orochimaru was still looking at the blonde oddly but was beginning to understand his reasons. While he didn't approve of going behind the two most powerful beings in the world backs, he wouldn't like it if someone he granted sanctuary were killed by people close to him. Sighing to himself, the snake sannin nodded before putting a few stipulations of his own. "I will, but I do not want either to know I'm supplying you with the sacrifices." Seeing Naruto nod, Orochimaru felt somewhat better knowing that if they learned of what he was doing; only Naruto would take the heat. He knew it was selfish, but he preferred his head were it was. "Good then it shall be done. I'll have someone rounded up by the end of the week."

Nodding at the snake sannin, Naruto headed for the room that Dosu and Zaku were staying in when the said door opened to reveal the person he was looking for. "Oi Dosu, she's coming but won't be here till tonight so rest up." Seeing Dosu's questioning look, Naruto continued. "She's a vampire and she's going to teach you a few things of her choice, probably nothing more then physical training but its worth it trust me. Oh, do not piss her off as she has a bad temperament and will not hesitate to do you bodily harm if pushed past her very small limit."

Dosu grunted in response as he walked past him and headed to the refrigerator as he heard snoring coming from within the room Kin and Yugito shared the night before. Sweat dropping lightly as he refrained from laughing, he walked over to the door and knocked. Hearing a squeak and hurried foot steps, he shook his head as the door opened lightly to reveal Kin holding a bed sheet over body. Still hearing the snoring made him raise his eyebrow before noticing that another presence was in the room. Smiling to himself as he shook his head, he looked over at Kin. "Sorry for interrupting but I kind of need your help. And if Zaku wants to he can as well as it probably make it easier."

Kin looked slightly surprised at this seeing that Naruto was up and was asking her for help. Thinking over it a moment before realizing that Dosu and Orochimaru could see what was going on, she nodded quickly and spoke hurriedly. "Okay, just let me get dressed."

Naruto chuckled as she disappeared into the room. A moment later there was a loud yelp followed by a few cuss words that obvious didn't come from Kin. While Dosu looked on in confusion trying to figure out why his teammate was in the room where Kin was sleeping, Orochimaru looked vividly amused along with Naruto.

A few moments later both Kin and Zaku were out of the room blushing madly as everyone was looking at them. Shaking his head not wanting them to stay there all day, Naruto pushed them outside while waving goodbye to the other two.

Once outside and moving, both looked over to Naruto as they wanted to know what was going on. Seeing their questioning looks, Naruto quickly spoke up. "Yeah, I'm trying to get a hotel room for Dosu trainer but I know no one will let me through their doors, I need some helping getting her one as she's not exactly a people person."

Nodding at his reasoning knowing why they wouldn't, Kin smiled lightly. "Sure we'll help seeing we don't have much to do for a while. But why..." She stopped as Zaku nudged her shoulder while shaking his head as he had gotten a clear view at what happened yesterday and was told what had happened.

Seeing this, Naruto sighed lightly as he led them to a hotel as Zaku quietly filled her in on what happened. While he was already getting use to the eye it was something he did not want. His eyes were the only thing that kept him linked to his parents and with one gone he had lost part of them, at least it felt like it to him.

After a while they were finally on the other side of town which was quite scarce meaning that Ferril could get to it without getting noticed by mostly anyone. Picking the first hotel in sight, he turned towards Kin and Zaku as he handed the latter the money before they went in to see the receptionist office. A moment later both came out and handed him a key. "Thank you, that's all I need."

Zaku nodded as he was more then willing to help but Kin had something else on her mind. "Your welcome but do not tell anyone else of what you saw or else I'll castrate you, got it? I don't care how much stronger then me you are, I will do it." Naruto could only nod knowing a woman's wrath was far worse then anything else the planet could dish out. Kin smiled lightly at that before gripping Zaku's arm. "Good, now we'll be off as there are a few things I want to do today."

Naruto shook his head as she dragged Zaku off into the distance while praying for him knowing it would not end well for him, mainly his wallet. Pocketing the keys, he shook his head as he jumped to the roof tops as he had finished far faster then he thought. Figuring he would get used to his new eye, he sent some of his vampiric energy to it to activate it. Ignoring the burning sensation, he closed his left eye as his right eye's vision zoomed in rapidly. Taking a look around, he smirked as he saw someone he needed to talk to close by. Disappearing in a flash, he appeared in a clearing just a raven haired boy walked into it.

Sasuke was heading to his normal training grounds as his newest sensei was a complete joke and knew he could farther himself more under his own guidance then his. But to his surprise in a flash of light Naruto had appeared in front of him with his arms crossed in a passive manner. He jumped back in surprise before pulling out a kunai at the blonde haired boy. While he knew he was no match for him he'd rather say he died fighting then going quietly. "What do you want?"

Pulling out a scroll from within his pouch, Naruto looked at the raven haired avenger with a stoic face. "I was planning on giving you this, but first I want to know why you killed that girl without even thinking about it."

The Uchiha was caught off guard by his question. His eyes narrowed but knew with the situation as it was he decided answering was the best thing at the moment. "She was a shinobi, she knew the risk in our lives and she willingly faced me. While I was not aiming to kill her, it happened. And why should you care, neither of her teammates did?"

Naruto remained emotionless at his answer. He was slightly relieved knowing that what he said was true but it was best not to show anything as he was quite sure Sasuke was beginning to learn what was going on. "I do because my opponent couldn't at the time. His mind was clouded when your fight was happening so he didn't think twice about it. But think of it this way, would you be angry if he had fought Sakura and had killed her?"

Seeing the look in his eye, Naruto nodded lightly as he continued. "Exactly. For all you know he could be planning his revenge against you and I cannot have that. I came here to give you a few jutsu to help defend yourself from him if he decides to take his revenge."

Having slight understanding of what was going on, Sasuke nodded as he slowly pocketed his kunai knowing that he meant him no harm. He caught the scroll that Naruto threw at him but never took his eyes off the blonde. "Why are you helping me? What do you gain out of it?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Naruto gave Sasuke a blank glare as he answered him. "Your questions will be answered at the chunin exams. But when that day comes, stay out of my way. I have a few things to teach this village for what it has done."

Before Sasuke could even question this, Naruto was gone in a flash of black and red light. Making sure he was gone, Sasuke shook his head as he opened the scroll that was given to him. A small smirk crossed his face as he looked at the jutsu and training equipment sealed within it. He was definitely going to get stronger on his own then with his no good sensei.

---------------------------

Two week had past and Naruto was quite pissed that he was summoned and there was no immediate danger. Looking at who summoned him, his anger quickly died down as he noticed Hinata along with a few of the higher ups of the branch house, including Neji who was looking much worse then he last saw him. Having an idea of what this was about, Naruto was about to speak when Hinata beat him to the punch. "Naruto, I'm sorry for calling you here so quickly without giving you any forewarning but we didn't have much time. My father planned on executing Neji tonight with the seal so we had to get him out of there."

Realizing what was going on, Naruto looked at the elders as he activated his aura vision. Seeing that no one was close to figuring out where they were, he turned to the four of them focusing his attention at the two elders as he looked over Neji. He knew that the boy had taken a beating and a bad one. "It’s quite dangerous for both of you to be here as they might think you helped him escape."

The female Hyuuga shook her head as she looked over the young Hyuuga. "I know, but I can't let him be hurt any more then he is. He is and has been our hope for the branch family to unite the two houses. But seeing what they have done, I want nothing more then revenge on them... Shit they have us surrounded!"

Naruto saw this as well as his blades sprang to life. He counted no less then ten main house members and Hiashi himself. Knowing that only Hinata couldn't be killed by the seal, he would have to go all out to stop them as she wouldn't be much of a help against well trained main branch Hyuugas. "Hinata, after I open a hole for you to escape I want you to take them to the camp and drop them off there so they can have their seals removed. You can come back as there will be no one left to identify you as one of the accomplices."

All four Hyuuga looked surprised at this. None believed even with the Hiraishin as they just witnessed that he could survive against ten of the best Hyuugas and Hiashi. Hinata being the most vocal of them voice her concern. "There is no way! You won't survive. I doubt even the Yondaime could take all of them down on his own without taking some serious damage!"

Neji's eyes widened lightly as he remembered Naruto's statement in the forest. A slight smirk crossed his face as he could tell the blonde was lying then and shook his head. "Hinata-sama, he does not lie. You will be able to come back after tonight. In the forest, he claimed himself to be stronger then the Yondaime and I believed him, so let's go when he gives the word."

Hearing Neji say this along with Naruto's unwavering determination, the three caved in even if they were shocked to the core hearing that. Seeing this, Naruto brought his left blade to his right palm and cut down to his elbow just as the eleven Hyuuga arrived. Seeing Hiashi among them, he smirked knowing he would enjoy this greatly as he swung his right arm forward. In a gruesome sight, a vortex of blood surrounded his arm before shooting in front of him knocking everyone back. "Go now!"

They didn't need to be told twice. They rushed through the cleared path before the Hyuugas could get up. As soon as two got up their heads rolled off their shoulders as Naruto stood between them with his blades extended. "You will not be chasing them; your fight is with me."

Hiashi narrowed his eyes. This was all well too planned and he had a feeling something bigger was going on. Under normal circumstances he would have sent a few to chase down the blood traitors, but he knew that would leave them at a severe disadvantage as he knew the demon knew the Yondaime's jutsu. While he respected the jutsu, he knew that they could beat it with a few Kaitens. But doing so would turn him into a target along with his second-in-command. But bringing down the demon was more then worth it even if a few of his clan was sacrificed in the process. "Take him out so we can continue pursuit."

Soon as the command was given, he jumped to the side as his second-in-command Gota took the other side knowing what Hiashi was thinking. He wasn't the only one as the rest lined up in formation as if they went through drills on how to defend against the Hiraishin. Naruto narrowed his eyes instantly knowing what was going on before smirk crossed his face. Using the last of his cut, he brought his arm forward and used another concentrated Blood Storm to scatter them. Soon as he did he wished he hadn't. He became far more tired then he thought. 'Dammit! That was a bad idea. I can't do that again without feeding.'

His attention shifted as he rolled out of the way of a few kunais and shuriken aimed to kill in one strike. Not even looking back, he sliced the hand of the Hyuuga behind him before snapping his blade back and slamming his forearm into the man's chest before snapping it back into place. With a rustle of leaves he disappeared without a flash and appeared in front of Gota and slammed him into the tree before sinking his fangs into his neck and began drinking as much blood as he could. Even with the shocking sight of watching someone having their blood sucked dry, the others continued one with there attack forcing him to release Gota without getting a decent feed.

Landing on the tree branch above, he cursed as he noticed a few explosive tags. Disappearing once more, he avoided the blast only to be thrown backwards as he was hit by chakra. Skidding backwards, he narrowed his eyes as he noticed the Hyuuga clan head using the Kaiten. He would have waited for the whirl to end to take the man down but he wasn't given that chance as a he grabbed the hand aimed for his heart. He moved his other hand back to aim his blade to kill the man when another gripped his wrist. Narrowing his eyes he snapped his blade back and sliced off a few fingers as he let go of the others hand and leaned to avoid the palm strike to his heart.

Thrusting his blade hand towards the Hyuuga missing a few fingers, his blade pierced his skull before spinning backwards and pushed his folded blade into the other's throat just as two more appeared and hit him in the chest with palm strikes. Coughing up some blood, he attempted to disappear only to be hit by another Kaiten from Hiashi. Landing on his knees and coughing more blood, he noted he was surrounded by the remaining seven Hyuugas. Knowing he would regenerate from his wounds, he stood up as he concentrated on breaking his limit. With a snap of his eyes, his banpaia ryoku and youki swirled around him violently. "My limit is gone, now I'll be facing you all at my full strength."

Each Hyuuga backed up in fear and surprise as the amount of energy being put off was far beyond what they had suspected. But to make things worse they could tell that the two energies surrounding him were repelling each other and if they mixed there would be no stopping him. Before they could react, almost all their heads hit the ground. The only one remaining was Hiashi as he looked down Naruto. His anger began rising more as the boy beckoned him to make a move but he kept his cool knowing that was what he wanted him to do. Instead he slid into the jyuken stance and patiently waited for an opening to attack as he knew help was on the way.

Sensing this as well, Naruto knew he had to end the battle quickly so he stopped time again and rushed in for the kill. Once more he was repelled by the Kaiten and was getting ticked. It stung every time he hit it and it kept him from achieve his goal. Disappearing once more, he tried circling around him to avoid the Kaiten till it was over, but Hiashi once again hit him with it as he pushed more and more chakra into it. Growling lightly, he charged him without wasting any energy and jumped over the spinning Hyuuga head as he started the Kaiten once more. Gathering his youki into his hand, a green ball formed as he slammed it into the spinning whirl.

In an explosion, he was rocketed into the tree as a dust debris surrounded the area. As he pulled himself off, he activated his Aura Vision to locate Hiashi only to see him on him. His eyes widened in surprise as he was about to stop time when a clawed hand pierced through the Hyuuga's chest. The leader of the Hyuuga's eyes widened as he looked behind him to see an odd colored woman with blank eyes looking at him before ripping his heart out and biting into it as his body slackened and fell to the floor.

Naruto looked surprised seeing Ferril there knowing that Rayne would be showing up before he remembered that she was at the camp going over the invasion with the three sannin. Breathing in relief, he looked at the female vampire and smiled. "Thanks for the save."

Ferril didn't answer him right away as she finished feeding on the man's heart. Once she was done, she looked at the blonde dual breed before snarling. "Why didn't you transform? You could have taken them out with ease."

Shaking his head lightly, Naruto sighed as he figured she wouldn't understand. "Easy, I don't want the entire village in an uproar thinking Kyuubi has come back or another demon is attacking the village. That would endanger all my teammates and friends and I couldn't live with myself if something happened to them."

She looked at him with confused eyes before shaking her head as she dropped the heart and stomped it. "I will never get you boy. Thinking of yourself should be the most important thing for either of us. I rather not die because of you. Now we best leave if you don't want to endanger your friends."

Naruto nodded as he sensed them as well and both disappeared as a horde of shinobi arrived at the area having sensed Naruto's output.

---------------------------

Naruto was not in a good mood at the moment. It was finally nearing time for the Chunin Exam Finals and only he was in the arena with all the spectators glaring at him, knowing who he was. 'What in the name of God is taking Dosu, Gaara and Yugito to get here?! I can understand Dosu as I know Ferril ripped him a new hide so he is probably limping his ass here.'

'Gaara is probably asleep as that all he does outside of fighting and training! If I have to go wake the red haired bastard up I will be so pissed! And what is with Yugito?! She and Gobi have been hanging around far too much for my liking. They have something planned, but what? I know Gobi wants me as I'm the only other Dog Demon left in this world and she sees Yugito as a threat. …So why are the two hanging around each other so often?'

Before he could go further into his thoughts, a swirl of sand appeared right besides him. Rolling his eyes, Naruto turned to Gaara and slapped him upside the head soon as he appeared before glaring at him. Gaara wisely said nothing as the look Naruto was giving him clearly said he was pissed for being here alone.

Shaking his head as the head, he looked back at his friend and shrugged. "Sorry, I slept in. Dosu is heading this way and Yugito was walking here was Gobi. …Does that disturb you as well? I mean before this last month the two were always at each others throats and now they are trying to be civil towards each other. Something is out of place about that."

Nodding as he was already thinking of that, Naruto noticed Dosu walking into the arena with a very small and almost unnoticeable limp. Refraining from sweat dropping as he was correct once more, he sighed deeply before turning back to Gaara. "Yeah, it is very, very strange. I've been wondering what they are up to and all I have figured out is that it deals with me."

"Whatever it is, I'm not sure if it bodes well for my well being. Yugito likes to pummel me when I do something stupid and Gobi beats the living crap out of me to teach a lesson. I have a feeling this will involve the beating of my life." Seeing the sweat drop on the back of Gaara's head, he decided to change the subject as Dosu walked over to them. "Hey Gaara, have you noticed that Itachi seems to be acting more subdued… Almost like he is trying to settle down for something."

Gaara gave a small nod in confirmation as he had noticed Itachi's change in behavior as of lately. But he also knew the reason for it as he had been watching the girl's with his third eye before they destroyed it and proceeded to chase him half way across the globe.

Wincing as he wished his sand had been strong enough to protect him from the beating he received, he shook his head and vowed to never spy on women again. "Yeah, I've noticed it but I know why. You know he and Nibi got together last year right?" Seeing Naruto nod, Gaara looked over at the exit as Sasuke walked in Hinata trailing behind him before turning back to Naruto. "Well, apparently Nibi is pregnant and seeing she has only been with Itachi…"

"Ahk! Enough! I don't need that image in my head!" Naruto almost screamed out as he scratched his eyes hearing that Itachi and Nibi had actually done that. He honestly did not want to think of either in that way as it was quite disturbing as Itachi was his godfather and Nibi had taken the role of Yugito's mother since she lost her powers.

Seeing Gaara grin at him, he glared at the sand user before a look of confusion crossed his face. "Wait… If that is true, then what about Itachi and Yonbi? I've seen them together this month and Nibi doesn't have a problem with that especially in her condition?"

"No." Yugito's voice came from behind them as she jumped down from the top of the stadium wall. Neither jumped in surprise but they were both very close to doing it as they slowly turned towards her.

"Nibi gave Itachi the permission to see Yonbi as well as she has had a crush on Itachi since coming to the mansion and Itachi has taken the words of that man to heart and has been watching over her. Nibi saw it was becoming more and didn't want to lose him because of their attachment. She knows Itachi loves her and the baby will only strengthen that, but she also wants Itachi to be completely happy and fill the void in his heart. She wishes it to be filled and that is why she wants to see if he and Yonbi can get together. That and she is bi and wouldn't mind having another partner."

Seeing that Yugito had said that with a straight face, all males that heard her were blushing madly at the implications while muttering a few choice words under their breath. Naruto was quite glad that Sasuke hadn't caught that otherwise everything would explode out of proportion before their plan could start.

Shaking his head as he got his blush under control, he sighed before turning and looking at his fellow blonde. "Well, I hope sensei finds happiness with both of them. He really deserves it after all the crap he has gone through his life. I just wished I knew before today so I could say something to them."

Nodding in understanding, Yugito smiled lightly before noticing the rest of the contestants besides Kabuto had arrived in the arena. Her eyes narrowed at this having thought he would be here for this as he advanced, she turned to Naruto before walking up to him and whispering in his ear. "Why isn't Kabuto here? If he's not won't people find it strange that one of the chunin contestants doesn't show up to at least fight for their promotion?"

"Yes, they will but they will not care as it will gave Sasuke a bye round to the next fight, me. While all that have come here today, for the most part, want to see their precious Uchiha wipe the floor with their demon, they rather see me be eliminated right away so they can say the demon is gone at last. That is why Kabuto isn't here and is here at the same time. He is the one that will put all the people in the stadium asleep so we can start the invasion." Naruto answered in a very low voice so that no one could catch what he said.

Just as he finished, a swirl of leaves appeared in front of the nine contestants in the arena as Genma appeared to ref their battles once more. Looking over all nine of them as they stood in a line, he spoke in a calm and collective voice though he knew very well what was about to happen.

"Alright before we can begin the finals, I will just reiterate this just one more time. All nine of you will be being watched by your village leader or leaders along with the daimyos from your lands. Depending on your performance you will be judged if you shall be promoted or not. You don't have to win this tournament to be promoted and like wise you can win and not be promoted. It depends on your decision making, judgment and skills that will show if you have to capacity to become a chunin."

As all nodded, Genma slid his senbon to the other side of his mouth and chewed on it for a moment. Looking up towards the council members sitting were the Hokage should have been he refrained from showing his true feelings of the situation.

Seeing the elders nod at him to begin, he closed his eyes before turning back to the gennin. "Will everyone but Namikaze-Ryuu Naruto and Inuzuka Kiba head up to the contestants' box so the first match can commence?"

Gaara turned to Naruto and nodded before disappearing in a swirl of sand and appearing into the constants' box looking down at the arena.

As everyone began to head up there as well, Yugito walked over to Naruto before planting a light kiss on his cheek to his surprise before leaning to his ear. "That was for good luck and keep control. He is not his sister. He can be saved. Just remember that." With that she turned around and followed the rest up the stairs.

Quickly snapping out of his shock, he nodded to himself as he turned to Kiba. She was right, he was not his sister and did not deserved to take the punishment for what she had done. Still, he would send a clear message to all those who hated him. He was not what they had called him all those years ago. He was only Naruto, not a demon even if he had the blood of one flowing through his veins.

Calming both his demonic and vampiric blood that was calling for revenge, he looked dead in the eyes as if daring him to stand up to him. Akamaru was unable to do so as he jumped from Kiba's jacket and ran to the stairs.

Seeing the look of surprise on Kiba's face, Naruto answered him in low growl. "He knows his master Kiba. You are his partner, but I am his lord so he will obey my orders, not yours. He will not mess with me as I'm the heir of what you respect but fear so much."

Kiba snapped his attention to him as he heard Naruto's words. He growled lightly at this seeing Akamaru had ran up the stairs and into Hinata's arms. Something was not right as his best friend had abandoned him in this fight and he wanted to know why. Hana had told him to ignore Naruto if he said anything like this, but his mom, said to be careful and not to underestimate what Naruto could truly do.

This confused him more then anything as if his mother was indifferent towards him now while Hana wanted him dead. Before he could gather a response, he heard Naruto growl as he looked up at Akamaru.

His eyes widened in surprised as Naruto was actually speaking and understood what he had said perfectly as his partner slowly nodded before heading back down into the arena and at his side. Looking at him in shock, Kiba spoke. "Why would you do that? You had an advantage against me but you called him back down to fight."

Turning towards him, Naruto sprang his blades in place before sliding the tip of his finger against the blade. Cutting himself from the sharpness, he licked the blood of his finger while baring his fangs to show to everyone. Seeing his intimidation had worked, he smirked his red eyes glanced over at his opponent.

"Because facing you with anything less then your full strength is a disgrace. Your partner understands that and is why he came back down to fight. Disgracing the honor of an Inu is unacceptable and it seems that a lot of your clan has forgotten the old ways. In the past the Inu were the greatest but look how we have fallen. It is disgusting to see our great blood be tarnished as it has been. Today, I will prove to you the true extent of the power we Inu's used to have and I wanted you at full strength to show you just that."

Up in the balcony with the council, Tsume frowned hearing this. She knew what the boy had become, but she wanted to know how. If he was truly an Inu, he was the rightful heir for their clan to show them the ways of the past. If she knew how he became one then many things would be answered about how he knew so much of what an Inu should truly be. But until she did, she would only watch and not make any decisions. She just hoped her boy would do nothing stupid because of her daughter's hatred.

Having a feeling that they were getting ready to begin, Genma looked up at the council once more before sighing as they wanted to get straight to the fighting. That was another thing he missed about a Hokage. The Hokage would always speak at such big events and give a welcome to all those outside of the village.

The council didn't even do that much as they were inhospitable to mostly everyone which probably explained why the leader of Otogakure had not shown up. Then again, he knew of the plan so it wasn't too much of a surprise that he didn't come in disguised… Scratch that, he did.

Orochimaru had finally made his appearance as he walked up and took the main seat by the elders. Of course he was using a disguise that was undetectable to almost everyone and seeing that Hiashi had been taken out, he didn't have to worry about being found out. Turning to the three elders, he bowed lightly. "Sorry I'm late. I was held up by misinformation about an attempt on my life."

All the council members nodded in understanding as it was bound to happen, they all turned to the battle as Orochimaru smirked under his mask. All was going to plan. "Ah, our shinning star is in the first match. This ought to be quick then. No one can keep up with him if he's on a good day and if he isn't… Well let's pray that he is. We still haven't found the rest of that poor ninja's body."

He smirked as he saw a lot of their faces drop or turn into rage. The only ones that had different responses were Chouza, Shikato, Shibi and Tsume, the first two hiding small smirks while the later two showed no physical reaction whatsoever. He frowned seeing this as he suspected the first three, but Tsume was a surprise.

He had remembered that she hated the boy with a passion years back, but something had been said or done that left her with only reason and now that she was only left with that, she was beginning to see the truth. Another smirk crossed his face at this before turning to the arena as he wished to see the fight, no matter how one sided it was going to be.

Genma sighed as he looked at the two young boys. Both knew the rules so there would be no need to go over it with them. Looking at both of them, he raised his hands into the air pointed at the two boys. "You two know the rules, so fight with your fullest and do not disappoint either of your villages. There will be no killing unless there is no way around it. As such, I will step in if the fight gets out of hand. Now, let the opening battle of the Twenty-Seventh Chunin Exams between Namikaze-Ryuu Naruto vs. Inuzuka Kiba begin!"

Naruto didn't waste a second as he streaked towards Kiba in a flash of black and red light to all those that were watching. Ignoring their aw, he was behind Kiba with his blade pointed at his neck. "This fight could be over at any second I chose it to be, but I will give you a fair chance. If you can land one blow onto me, I will concede this fight."

Pulling his blade back, Naruto jumped back with a smirk on his face as he heard the crowd silence in fright at what he could do. Kiba was thoroughly scared as well as he left a small cut on his neck making his smirk grow a little larger.

Snapping his blades back at rest, Naruto beckoned for him to come as his youki began to rise along with the rocks around him as the ground started cracking at his feet. "But if you want, I can end this quickly! TSUGA!"

To the surprise of all Inuzukas watching the battle, Naruto quickly spun around before turning into a miniature black and red cyclone heading straight for Kiba. Finally, Kiba snapped out of his shock and jumped out of the way with Akamaru just as Naruto hit the ground he stood at ripping it to shreds.

As the spinning came to a halt, Kiba wasted no time and used Shikyaku as Akamaru ate a soldier pill he through him before jumping onto his back. In a poof of smoke, two feral looking heirs of the Inuzuka clan stood in front of Naruto before using a double version of the technique Naruto had just used. "GATSUGA!"

The two piercing fangs spiraled towards Naruto as he stood in the crater from his last attack. Looking at the two coming at him, Naruto pushed his youki to his feet and released it as he jumped up, lifting him clear over the stadium walls as Kiba and his beast clone stopped to look up in surprise.

Pushing youki to his palm, he began to spiral it in many different directions before adding more power to it. A spiraling misshaped sphere of green youki formed in his hand as he focused on controlling it. As he did, it formed a perfect sphere as he fell to the earth directly at the true Kiba. "Rasengan!"

Gasps were heard throughout the crowd and council members hearing the name of the jutsu. Having never seen an attack like this before, Kiba knew he had to move as this technique felt more powerful then any other he had seen before.

Jumping back as Akamaru jumped the opposite direction to avoid the attack as Naruto neared the ground and he smirked at him before frowning seeing the smirk on his face as he turned in mid air and threw the ball of youki directly at him and collided with his stomach not having the time to react fast enough. "Dangen!"

Kiba yelled out in pain as the ball shredded away the exterior his clothes easily and began to drill into his stomach, lifting him into the air from the force of the blow. But it felt far weaker when it was in Naruto's hand then before. Realizing that it no longer had a constant chakra flow, he coated his hands with chakra before gripping the green ball.

Gritting his teeth in pain, he yelped as it dug into his hands but with a burst of chakra and strength, he threw it off into the ground causing a small explosion as it connected and tore the ground until it finally gave out. Regaining his senses, he tried to land but with little track he pushed his chakra into his legs to help grip the ground while skidding back.

A flash of light wouldn't allow this as Naruto was on him and gripped his collar before delivering a solid knee to his tattered stomach. Kiba coughed blood onto his clothes, but he did not relent as he pulled his fist back and began driving his fist into Kiba's face. Sensing that Akamaru was coming to his aid, he gripped Kiba's right arm with both hands and tossed Kiba at him.

Akamaru couldn't react fast enough and his head collided with Kiba's sending the dog reeling. He knew that they were still able to battle and that was fine with him. He had to take the boy's pride down a couple of notches. "Kiba, do you understand why you are losing?"

Growling loudly as he picked himself up, despite the pain he was in, Kiba glared at Naruto as Akamaru helped him onto both feet. His growling became louder before he rushed Naruto with Akamaru right behind him before taking his left flank.

Sighing as he saw this, Naruto avoided the clawed strike towards his chin before delivering a hook to his gut causing Kiba further pain. Seeing he was open for Akamaru's attack, he planted his right foot down as he pulled back from his punch and spun on his planted foot and delivering a spin kick to Akamaru's face knocking him into Kiba and knocking them to the ground.

Before they could even move Naruto slammed his foot into Kiba's chest before doing the same for Akamaru. They skidded against the ground until they ran into the wall as Naruto continued walking towards them. "You are losing because you forgot what it means to be a true Inu."

Kiba glared at Naruto hearing this but he was in no position to counter him as Naruto was only a few feet from them and had stopped with both his hands in his pant's pockets. "Being an Inu means having pride, but not letting it get to your head. You let no one tell you what to do, but you listen to those who know more then you. You are headstrong, but know when to give in."

"These are things that Inus have to remember otherwise… You'll end far worse then what you ended up like you are today. Beaten and having someone else telling you where you failed is nothing compared to what others will do if they find you in this condition. You live the life as a shinobi so you should already know that but it goes double for us. If you ever forget that you will not make it through the next time this happens. Now surrender or I will stop pulling my punches and end this battle."

Hearing what he had to say, Kiba stopped himself from growling. He could not detect any dishonesty coming from Naruto so he knew he wasn't deceiving him. And the way Akamaru acted before the battle and had listened to him made him truly believe that Naruto was an Inu, but then why not call himself an Inuzuka?

Unless… he was from the original strand.

His eyes widened as the thought about that as it would make sense from his definite edge in power. Taking a deep breath, he looked at Naruto and knew he had won this battle as Akamaru reverted back into his regular form. "I concede… Naruto no Taicho."

As Genma called the fight, Naruto smirked as Kiba had figured it out and nodded at Kiba's declaration as his left eye flashed emerald and ruby to confirm it. He called himself an Inu enough that if he hadn't figured it out he would have been rather annoyed.

But finally to validate it to him, he pulled out a scroll before unsealing a blade in its wooden sheath before pulling it out. "This is in Tensaiga, the Sword of the Heavens. Only one of Inu blood can use it, but the blade chooses its owner. It did not chose me, but nonetheless I can still use it. But it wants a new owner and…"

Seeing the blade pulse in his hand, Naruto smiled as he sheathed it before flipping it and catching it by the sheath and handing it to Kiba. "It has chosen you to wield it. You have proven to it that you are worthy, just misguided."

Gripping the handle gently before taking the blade out, it pulsed in his hands as Naruto continued. "It will not harm another soul unless forced to. It is a sword of healing but can be used as defense along with its sheath. That sheath can block almost any attack as the wood comes from an ancient demon tree."

"But tred lightly, if you misuse the sword you will have to prove yourself once more to her to use the sword again. Tensaiga is very, very protective of its user once it has proven them self to the blade and will defend you with all its power. Use it wisely, Inuzuka Kiba or it shall be your last mistake."

Laying the sheath besides him, Naruto walked up the stairs as medics quickly rushed to him while in the balcony, Tsume frowned deeply.

Everything Naruto had said to Kiba was true and even she forgot the principles that their clan was founded on. While Naruto only touched on a few, the clan in general forgot everything they were taught at a very young age.

How was the younger generation suppose to learn when the older failed to uphold what is says? It cannot. She closed her eyes as a lone tear fell from her eye as she failed her clan.

Looking down to where he daughter was, she could only hope that she had paid attention to what Naruto had said.

As soon as Kiba and Akamaru were cleared from the arena and in the medics' hands, Genma cleared his throat as he almost swallowed his senbon. "Seeing that Yakushi Kabuto forfeited in advance, Uchiha Sasuke will move into the next round to face Namikaze-Ryuu Naruto."

A good portion of the crowd cheered hearing this which made both Naruto and Sasuke roll their eyes not wanting anything to do with it. Genma sighed at all of them before turning to the box. "Will Aburame Shino and Kinta Dosu come down to the arena for the second match?"

While both Dosu and Shino walked down the stairs silently, Yugito hugged Naruto tightly as he made it to the top, much to his surprise and once more received a kiss to his cheek. Beginning to get crept out by her actions, he slowly pushed her off him with a confused look on his face. "Yugito, that's the second time you've kissed me today. What is going on as the only one that has ever kissed me like that before has been Gobi?"

Yugito blushed madly at this while muttering something under her breath that he couldn't catch. As he was about to ask what she said, she looked up before surprising him and Gaara as she kissed him lightly on the lips leaving him frozen to the spot. Happy as she had thoroughly distracted Naruto, she walked to the edge of the box while humming to herself. Before she could completely got away with what she did, Gaara tapped her shoulder while glaring at her. "What are you planning?"

This snapped Naruto out of his shock as he looked over at the cat eared girl, who was blushing madly as she was trying to avoid answering their question. Sighing as she was getting beat, she shook her head as she smiled. "You'll find that out later whenever we decide to tell Naruto."

Both raised their eyebrows at her and were confused at the we part. Who else could she have been talking about? Who could it be unless she developed a split personality and was counting that as the other person? As they tried to figure out who it was, Yugito smiled happily as she looked down at the arena as Dosu and Shino were about to face off.

Soon as Genma gave the signal for the fight to begin, Dosu for once did not make the first move. Instead, he slid into a defensive stance and awaited for Shino to make the first move. The one of the few things he had learned from was patience and to control his anger. Because if he wasn't patient or exploded at her she beat the leaving hell out of him. And it really didn't help on a few occasions she mentioned she hated training cattle.

Shino looked strangely at Dosu as he was being far more patient then he was a month ago. Remembering his battle with Ino a month earlier, he knew Dosu to act quickly when given the opportunity and hearing the same from the others that fought him in the forest proved to him with what he believed he needed to know. However it seemed that his opponent had changed in the time to prepare for just this fight. Wanting to see how he would react to his normal attacks, he let his bugs swarm around him before sending a small batch towards his opponent.

Dosu rolled out of the path of the bugs before jumping back to gather some distance from his opponent. He knew the bug user had the advantage in this fight and winning it would take everything he had as it was a bad match up. Over the month training with Ferril, he had learned to harness his aggressiveness and anger to put it to good use. The only reason he learned that as she nearly killed him twice for pissing her off, but the training had paid off. He no longer even needed his haystack as his speed had drastically improved, but facing an opponent that could suck him dry of chakra before nearing him limited his odds.

Seeing that his opponent was feeling him out trying to see what he was going to do, he focused on him with his one eye before charging him with his melody arm dragging across the ground. A blinding ring was heard from around him, but he seemed to be unaffected as he rushed towards him with speed nearly matching that of Lee's. A smirk crossed his face seeing the bugs flutter around him as if they were in pain as he reached him.

Shino couldn't react as fast as his bugs senses were thrown off by the sound and took a vicious right hook to his face before he felt his collar be grabbed and took another fist to his face and a knee to his gut before he was released. The reason being that his bugs had regained their senses and had reacted to the attacker. Getting a reported from his kikai, he frowned as Dosu was wearing a highly poisonous bug repellent that would reflect a good portion of his attacks. However, he still had insects that were resistant to the type of repellent he was using and called them out while his kikai rested within his body.

Knowing that his opponent was quickly coming up with a strategy to get around his repellent seeing the bugs swarming around Shino being replaced, Dosu knew he would have to act fast to win this. Knowing his melody arm would only be useful with a direct hit, Dosu dug in his pouch before pulling out a vial he had asked Orochimaru for. He knew it was a cheep way to win, but he wanted to win this fight badly to prove he was truly the best sound gennin of his team.

Throwing it at his opponent, a green mist exploded around Shino as Dosu charged into it while holding his breath and slammed his melody arm into his chest. He frowned as his hand slipped through easily before widening seeing the bug user turn into hundreds if not thousands of insects that began to cover his arm before quickly covering his entire body. He tried to use a replacement, but his chakra was almost drained by the time he regained his wits and heard Shino's voice. "I knew you were going to use poison for this fight so I came prepared and had my kikais exposed to many type of poisons but you still used one they weren't immune to. I had to rely on my secondary insects, but they are just the same and are resistant to the poisons you used. This fight is over."

To his surprise, he only so Dosu smile as the bugs suddenly flew off him as a loud ring echoed through the arena as he burst through the mist and hit Shino directly in the chest as the sound vibrated through his body, breaking Shino's glasses revealing his black eyes underneath them. While many people were surprised at this, Shino fell to one knee as he panted from the blow while Dosu barely was able to stay on his feet. "Surrender or I shall do that again as I know you aren't ready to replace yourself with your insects."

Looking up at his opponent, Shino closed his eyes as he knew it was true. His entire body was in flux from the strike and another would end this battle in a heart beat if not hospitalize him. "Proctor, I surrender this fight."

Genma nodded and pronounced Dosu the winner as the said winner turned around and headed to the stairs before stopping. He knew if he did get another match he would not win as his opponents would be either the blonde haired girl or the red head and both were far superior to him in skills. And adding in he was almost drained of chakra, he knew he would not win. Closing his one visible eye, he spoke in a tone that expressed no emotion. "Proctor, I surrender the next fight as I cannot continue in the condition I am in."

Seeing Genma nod before calling out the next to opponents, he noticed that Shino frowned before they both walked up into the stands to find their teammates. Shaking his head, he looked over at Hinata as she walked down compared to Yugito, who stayed in the box before kissing Naruto on the cheek and jumping down into the arena. He noticed a small amount of anger in Hinata's eyes seeing the kiss and he had to wonder if the blue haired girl had a crush on the blonde haired ex-jinchuuriki. Whatever it was, it just gave this fight a whole different level of action if he was right.

Up in the box, both Naruto and Gaara were in a state of shock at what happened. Gaara was as Yugito was acting for out of her normal character and Naruto because she kissed him once more. Something was seriously up and they wanted to know, however they would have to wait for later as the fight was started as Genma made sure the two were ready before commencing it to start.

Hinata wasted no time as she rushed straight for Yugito with her Byukugan flaring. She knew exactly what she needed to do to win this fight and she was going to do it as the Hyuuga council was taking the fight for her right to become the next Hyuuga heir. Not that it would matter; they would not survive past today. She just wanted to win to prove her strength to everyone along with a certain blonde boy that had made a lasting impression on her.

Soon as she was on Yugito, she went for strike for her arm in attempt to limit her strength. To her surprise, Yugito easily bent herself around the strike before delivering a punishing blow to her stomach. While it hurt, she stuck to the ground with her chakra and continued attacking to put Yugito's strength out of this fight. But it seemed the blonde had not revealed her true strength in the fight against Sakura as she was able to bend around her strikes and counter her with a harsh blow of her own.

Being knocked back after a few strikes, she panted as she picked herself off of one knee as she looked over at her blonde opponent. She was far more flexible then she let on in her fight against Sakura. In that fight she had not shied away from contact and in fact seemed to enjoy it to an exact that it was unlady like. In fact, it seemed that she was afraid of taking a blow now due to her style of taijutsu. While it was a widely known to avoid Hyuuga's in hand-to-hand combat, it was annoying her that her opponent was keeping it a close range battle but not getting a single blow. Growling to herself, she continued on with her assault and began to use her own flexibility against hers.

Yugito quickly proved to the Hyuuga heiress that she was far more flexible due to her cat demon side as not a single blow touched her. She could tell that Hinata was getting frustrated and was attacking more erratically than before and wasn't aiming to disable her any longer. It still didn't matter as she bent her way in and around her attacks before ducking below her and delivering a spin kick to her chest, knocking the Hyuuga onto her back. Quickly flipping herself up, she landed on top of her opponent and placed her foot on her chest. "Give it up. I'm far more experienced and powerful then you are. If I don't want to be hit, only my teammates and senseis can lay a hand on me and you know how powerful Naruto truly is."

Frowning as she had gone down so quickly, Hinata had a feeling Yugito was not being completely truthful about her statement as Naruto could probably have his way with her in battle, but she knew that she was not joking about her skills. While she didn't want to, she knew she didn't have much of a choice as her foot slowly moved to her throat. "I surrender…"

Yugito pulled her foot off as Genma called the match before offering the heiress her hand. She noted that there was some resentment in her eyes, but she shook that off as she pulled Hinata to her feet before leaning in and whispering into her ear. Hinata frowned at what she was told before a light blush came to her face as she walked up the steps with her before speaking in a quite voice. "I see… Well I hope it works out for you two. I'm not entirely sure how it will work, but stranger things do seem to happen. Now I must go visit with my team before it happens."

Nodding in understanding, she watched as Hinata went off to join Kiba, Shino and her sensei, Kurenai. Turning around as she reached the box, a bead of sweat fell from her head as both Naruto and Gaara were staring her down as if she had done something wrong. Laughing nervously to herself, she thought about heading to where Itachi was however that was a bad idea seeing that he had not arrived and was probably preparing for the inevitable invasion. Getting irritated at their stares, she growled loudly at them. "Will you two stop staring?! I'm not telling you yet and that is final!"

Both wisely backed off as the tone of her voice told them to or be castrated and forced to eat their own waste blended with their jewels. Luckily Genma threw them out of their funk when he called for Gaara and Tenten.

Hearing Genma call for her, Tenten frowned as she looked over at Gaara. The sound had punished the leaf in the last matches and the only reason Sasuke advanced was due to forfeit. She wanted to try and change that, but remembering Gaara's battle with Sai definitely put a damper on her thoughts about trying to take out the red head. Not only that, she knew of the invasion and wanted to be ready to assist in any way possible as her father had joined the invasion force and had told her to keep quite about it. Taking a deep breath, she took a step to the arena and made herself visible. "I surrender this fight as I cannot compete against my opponent."

Gaara frowned lightly at this as he kind of wanted to have a warm up fight; however he knew the girl was thinking and knew that she did not stand a chance against him. He did not count that against her seeing that her specialty was weapons and he knew that anyone other then Naruto really couldn't hit him with a blade. Of course there was Rayne, but she didn't count as she was just too powerful for her own good.

Genma shook his head as another surrendered before the match. He was kind of hoping that the gennin of Konoha would have a good showing, but so far they really hadn't. Kiba got the bad end of the stick, Shino was beaten in a tight match and Hinata was just out classed. Honestly he knew Sasuke was going to get out classed as well, but he had to call the Yugito versus Gaara fight first to make it an even four in the finals. He frowned when a messenger bird landed on his shoulder and read the message only for his frown to deepen. Growling at what they asked him to do, he had no choice but to uphold it. "Will Namikaze-Ryuu Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke report to the arena? Your match has been moved ahead of time."

The crowd cheered as they heard their Uchiha was going up against their demon; however Naruto looked unfazed by the announcement. Having figured they were going to do something like this, he focused his sight next to Genma before appearing next to him in a flash of black and red light silencing the crowd. He noted that Sasuke appeared on the other side of Genma in a swirl of leaves and smirked as he knew he had learned at least one of the techniques he had given him to learn over the month. "Well, its good to know you learned the jutsu I gave to you for this month. Hopefully you mastered them to give me a decent challenge."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes as he frowned slightly at his opponent. While he knew he needed all he could get to win this fight, Naruto had the utmost confidence that he would win and win easily. And that annoyed him to no end. He did not like being considered the underdog in a fight, but he knew he was in this fight and the chances of winning were slight. While he knew the odds from the gambling table Konoha was using, he really didn't think he had that much of a chance to win this fight. It was as if they were guaranteeing him victory and completely ignoring the skill Naruto had shown in the fight before and in this tournament.

Having Genma start the fight, Sasuke slid into position as Naruto took a more direct approach as he held out his hand and formed a green ball of youki. To his surprise, more Naruto appeared in a single seal and all of them were holding the green ball of youki as it spun madly in their hands. To his confusion, all the Naruto's jumped up before throwing them down towards him with no accuracy whatsoever. It didn't matter as there was so many that he knew that dodging was not an option. But the cloud of smoke all the clones burst into took away his vision and he would have to guess where to shunshin himself as he used the technique.

Appearing twenty meters above the ground, he cringed as it would be a slightly painful landing but it was worth it to avoid the mass Odama Rasengan Dangen assault. But from the smoke, a streak of black and red light flickered over to him before Naruto was behind him. But what was odd that Naruto was a meter away from him and no where close to striking him until he noticed the blades glowing green as the youki pulsed through them. Seeing that he was holding them in an X-pattern, his eyes widened as he saw him slash and a green wave of youki in the shape of an X slammed into his body. As it was about to slam him into the ground, it grew exponentially in size causing a giant debris cloud on impact.

Landing next to the crater, he reached down into it and picked up a bruised Sasuke with a good size x cut into his chest, but wasn't deep enough to worry about. Throwing him aside as if he was nothing, he turned to Sasuke as he crashed into the wall and watched him slowly pick himself up. Seeing his Sharingan spin madly at him as he went through a few hand seals. He smirked as he heard lighting beginning to crackle as it appeared in the palm of his hands and retracted his blades as he formed another Rasengan in his hand. "I see you learned that technique from the scroll as well. I wonder what else you learned from it or are you going to keep that to yourself?"

Hearing Sasuke growl and charge at him, he smirked as Sasuke leapt towards him and struck. "CHIDORI!"

There was no struggle as Naruto easily countered with his Rasengan and reflected the blow before shoving his elbow into the Uchiha's gut, knocking him back and negating both attacks. He noticed that Sasuke was already being worn down; he noted that the technique had drained almost half of his chakra in one strike. He was surprised that it cost that much but it did not matter as he was going to win this fight easily. Turning to the coughing Uchiha as his elbow had struck his solar plexus; he looked at him with no remorse as he placed his hand on his forehead and shoved him to the ground. "You are weak. What is it that keeps you this weak? Is your drive to kill your father hindering you from realizing what it takes to inherit true power?"

Hearing Sasuke growl at him for his commit, he shrugged uncaringly as he knelt down and placed his blade at his throat. Seeing that he had his full attention now, he looked him in the eyes before speaking in calm and controlled voice but allowed his voice to become louder after each sentence. "Your brother would be disappointed how you turned out. Not because of your strength, but the way you achieve it. You do not gain strength from revenge or your family. Strength comes from within you… From the desire to protect what is precious to you! That is what separates you from me and especially your brother! We have found what is truly important and fight for them with all our heart! That is what you lack, Uchiha! And without it, you will NEVER find true strength!!"

Seeing Sasuke look at him with shock written over his face, Naruto released the blade from his throat as he stepped back as green and purple energy began to flow around him in a dazzling display of raw power. It quickly filled the majority of the arena as he held out his arms as it slowly began to mix around him before doubling in size and covering the entire arena before quickly receding as he dropped his hands and looked at the trembling Uchiha. "This is the difference of power. I am the same age as you and I have more power then almost any Kage that has ever lived… But do you know how I gained such power? …No? This is the power I gained from wishing to protect what is precious to me with all my body, heart and soul. Itachi has gained the same kind of power and it is only a matter of time before he breaks his limit and becomes even stronger."

"Now what is holding you back Uchiha? You know what it is needed to gain power, but can you do it? Can you stay away from the path you have chosen to pick the right one? If you can, you are welcome to join our cause… Which begins now." Naruto finished as people in the arena began to fall asleep as Kabuto's genjutsu took control.

Chaos ensued as shinobi quickly rushed to defend their home only to see that they were fighting their own shinobi, now with their hitai-ates slashed declaring them separate from Konoha. An explosion ripped through the press box as Orochimaru and the sound four quickly caught the council members and whisked them to a roof top perfect for the battle that was about to occur. Seeing that the four were beginning to set up the perimeter, Orochimaru pulled off his disguise and revealed himself to each of them, earning him a hardened glare from each before Danzo spoke for the group. "Snake, you should have never appeared here again. This will be your undoing…"

Orochimaru's laugh interrupted Danzo making him frown, which pleased the snake sannin even more as he answered his glare. "Undoing? No, no, no my dear traitor. This is all because of all of you. All of you have single handily destroyed Konoha and have turned it to a place of despair and war. That was not what Konoha was founded on. It was founded on the good will for all the warring clans and to bring them peace and hope for a new future. Because of what you have done, it is time for a cleansing. All those with good hearts and the will of the fire will be spared. However those that are detrimental to the whole will be either plucked or forced to leave home. All of you will die…"

Both Jiraiya and Tsunade had landed in front of him to the relief of all the council members. As they stood up, Orochimaru had a wicked smirk on his face as he looked at him. "Ah, my old teammates. Jiraiya, Tsunade. I believe it has been a little while. There is some unfinished business to take care of."

Tsunade stood passively as Jiraiya nodded before both took his side and turned to the council members. "Yes it has. It is time to weed the rotten roots of Konoha once and for all."

"Jiraiya! Tsunade! What is the meaning of this?!" Homura yelled as he could barely contain his anger seeing that the two sannins had joined the exiled sannin.

Orochimaru smiled as he stepped up and decided to answer for them. "Oh, but I already told you. You brought this upon yourselves the day you killed sensei and attempted to kill the Yondaime's son. And by the Yondaime's orders, a new Konoha will be established today along with a Godaime Hokage. …Chouza, Shikato. You may leave as you have proven yourself and your clan's worthy to stay in Konoha once the rapture is over. Please call off any of your clansmen that are attacking our troops and you know the rest. Tsume, I'll be having a word with you later to see if you will be allowed to stay."

As both Chouza and Shikato nodded before leaving the barrier just as the sound four complete it keeping anyone from the outside from interfering, the armless pink haired council member growled loudly at what Orochimaru had said. "Can it traitor! There is no way that the Yondaime ordered this and there is no way that demon is the son of our hero!"

Now that both Akimichi and Nara clan heads were gone, Orochimaru narrowed his eyes before Jiraiya bit his finger and went through the seals to summon when Orochimaru out stretched his hand and an odd pulsing ball of pure white light formed. It slowly rose into the air and covered the sun like a cloud just as his teammate finished his summoning. In a poof of smoke, a familiar red haired dhampire appeared in front of the sannin with her emerald eyes burning. She noticed Orochimaru's technique in the sky and smirked as its range had improved drastically in the month. "You've been training it seems, Orochimaru. I can deal with anything with a mile radius of this spot without being burn by the sun's rays."

"Do you have my sacrifice with you? I need it to show them the truth." Orochimaru asked as he looked at the red haired dhampire who nodded her head and pulled out a half dead Konoha shinobi that oddly looked like Inoishi's wife and that was true when he screamed her named in fear and horror. "Excellent… She'll do nicely… KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU: EDO TENSEI!"

Her body fell limp as she hit the ground as dust and dirt began to cover her as a she sunk into what seemed to be a coffin rising from the ground. Each looked on in terror as they saw the kanji for Yon. They all tried to cancel the jutsu but with Rayne's banpai ryoku being added to it made it impossible to counter for the council. As the coffin completely emerged from the ground, the door slowly began to open with smoke pouring out of it before the Yondaime Hokage walked out of the coffin looking almost like a zombie.

A they all looked in horror as Minato glared at him, looking more and more human by the second, a smirk crossed Orochimaru's face as nodded at this and noticed a certain fox had transformed and was tearing down the front walls of Konoha's just to show the difference between him and Naruto. "Oh, would you look at that? Kyuubi is attacking the village once more and Naruto is down in the arena. I guess that shows all of you how fucked up your decisions have been these past twelve years… Go wild Rayne, but leave the Inuzuka alive. I need to have a word with her before deciding her fate. But first… Minato, it is time for you to tell them the truth."

Minato nodded as he heard this; however he turned to Orochimaru with his electric blue eyes before gripping his shoulder. "First, I need to know what happened while I was gone, so hold still." As he finished, he went through a series of one hand seals that allowed him to see the memories of his choice.

Down in the arena, Naruto dodge another spinning cyclone, this time the attacker being Hana and her canine companions. His blood was burning and commanding him to kill her, but some part of him could not do it. Even with all his hatred for the girl, he could not lift his hand to kill her even though he wanted to. Focusing his banpai ryoku around him, a vortex of blood spiraled around him and caught the female Inuzuka off guard along with her three dogs and knocked them back and into the wall in the stadium. He noted that all the Konoha gennin were now in the arena but stopped when Hana yelled at them as she pulled herself out of the cratered wall. "Stop! He's mine! Take care of the other sound shinobi!

As soon as she said this, she attempted to charge Naruto only to find herself unable to move. Not sure what was going on, she struggled to look down before her eyes widened as she saw a shadow connecting to her and followed it to see it came from Shikamaru. She growled seeing this, but she could see the rest of the gennin ready intervene when both Chouza and Shikato jump down into the arena and the former speaking for the two. "Chouji, Shikamaru; head for the safety area. You are to stay out of this… This is something both of you do not need to see. For the rest of you that wish to rebuild Konoha after today, follow them."

"Not yet… Only a few have proven themselves to be worthy to stay. I still need a little more time to sort out the rest." Naruto countered as he jumped in-between each of the Konoha gennin with his blades coated in blood from a few jounin that were cocky enough to try and attack him. "Only Chouji, Hinata and Shikamaru have proven that and Hinata is well on her way to the safety zone. Kiba is almost there as is Sasuke, but the rest I don't know about. They may show their worth now or they may show why it is best to eliminate them now to protect Konoha future…"

At the end Naruto stopped as he felt a minor disturbance on the rooftop and a very familiar presence, but could not figure out whose it was. Reminding himself to check it out later, he was about to turn his attention to Hana when he caught sight of a very particular young boy. His face drained of its blood before he cursed loudly as he saw both Kin and Zaku dealing with their own problems in the form of a Root Anbu. "Konohamaru! Get out of here!"

The young boy wasn't sure why he had abandoned his green haired care taker. While the four tails were odd, she was quite nice and was the first person outside of Naruto that treated him with kindness unconditionally. However he wanted to watch Naruto beat his opponents into the ground and he got to see that, but all this had begun and he was unsure what to do. So naturally he headed towards Naruto as he had been supporting him this entire month. However he saw a few jounin jump him as his teammates held off a few of the Konoha gennin he knew. "Nee-san! What’s going on…? AH!"

Shikamaru had lost his hold on Hana and her dog leapt the young boy, but that was as far as it went as a shuriken embedded itself into its head, Kiba the one that had thrown it. Hana's eyes widened as she saw this as one of her partner fell to the ground due to her brothers actions. "KIBA! What is the meaning of this?"

The injured Inuzuka only panted as it had taken a good portion of his concentration to throw the shuriken accurately without harming Konohamaru. Seeing Tensaiga pulse and understanding what it had said, Kiba looked his sister in the eyes before answer. "Because what you were doing is just as wrong as what you did to Naruto was even worse… I cannot forgive you or our clan for what it has done and I thank Naruto and the sword of our ancestors for showing me the light."

Hana's eyes widened hearing this before her eyes narrowed as her anger was getting the best of her. "That is no excuse for killing my partner, brother! He's a demon and if you would take a look around and you would see that! They started this war and we are defending our home! Anything that is a connection to him is bad news and needs to be eliminated, but you are too young to see that! But for now, stay out of this!"

As she was about to turn back to Konohamaru, she was forced to jump back as a large burst of flames nearly engulfed her. Growling louder then before, she threw a kunai towards the one responsible only to have Sasuke deflect it as he stared her down. "No, something is wrong here, but not with them attacking. Something is wrong with everyone here and I've know that ever since they ordered my training to kill my father and brother… And now I'm beginning to see what it is from what Naruto has said. This village has truly forgotten everything it was founded on… Naruto is right; to find true strength you need something holding you down. This village was leading me down the path to destruction and he allowed me to see that."

"You too Uchiha… Fuck it! I'll deal with you later! Anyone that aids the demon is a traitor to the village!" She blew by both Kiba and Sasuke and headed straight for Konohamaru before spinning as she used her clan’s main jutsu with her two remaining dogs. And her target was the young boy that was trying to aid Naruto.

Just as she reached him, Naruto appeared in front of him and was holding his hands out to his sides. Suddenly a green spiral of youki surrounded both himself and Konohamaru, eerily similar to his Odama Rasengan. In fact, the only difference was that it wasn't a dense ball of youki and all the energy was placed on the outside. Hana didn't stand a chance as she rammed into the shield and was viciously knocked off and into the wall along with her two partners.

Soon as she was knocked off, Naruto released the shield before turning around to Konohamaru. "It’s too dangerous for you to be here right now. I'm sorry, but this all has to happen so Konoha can return to the way it once was… Like it was when our fathers were in control and not the council." He knew Konohamaru had heard him as he was nodding, but the young boy was too frightened to think straight as blood a lot of blood was being shed in front of his eyes. Kneeling down, he hugged the boy lightly as Gaara and Yugito were quickly at his side, ready to take his place as he was busy. As Konohamaru was beginning to calm down, Naruto spoke in a soft voice. "I'm sorry…"

With a quick chop to his neck, Naruto knocked the young boy out before lifting him up under his arm. Turning to both Kiba and Sasuke, he nodded his head lightly at the two. "You have both proven that you are worthy to stay after this is over. Take Konohamaru and follow the main street out of Konoha. Scratch your hitai-ates so you aren't mistaken for the enemy and exit the main gate. A woman with green hair will be a quarter of a mile off and holding a shield to protect those that aren't to fight or witness what we are doing here. …Your brother will talk to you once this is over and Kiba, don't hold anything against me for what I'm about to do to your sister."

Sasuke nodded as he scratched his hitai-ate without thought before taking Konohamaru and putting him over his shoulder. Kiba on the other hand hesitated a moment before doing the same with his head band. "I… I'll try not to, but please make it quick. She's still my sister, no matter what she has done. …Sasuke, let's go."

Naruto nodded as the two quickly left the arena as Hana regained their senses. As she was, Naruto flipped his blades into position as he spoke to Gaara and Yugito without looking back at them. "Leave this area to me… Join the forces outside and help. There isn't much you can do here any longer."

Hearing his tone, Gaara nodded without pause knowing that Naruto didn't want them to see what he was about to do. Yugito frowned, but nodded as well. She just hoped that he was able to control himself enough to keep from transforming as she knew that his blood had been calling for the Inuzuka's blood for a while. Taking a deep breath, she followed Gaara out of the arena as Naruto turned his attention to the female Inuzuka as she pulled herself out of the crater his shield had put her in. "You know, I would have left you to someone else to judge… But after what you've just done, I cannot. I'll heed Kiba's words and I will make your death quick… But it will not be painless."

Time froze as he said this and the girl glared at him, but she was unable to move any more as he activated his most dangerous vampiric ability. Walking towards her as she barely was able to move; he struck and sliced his blade clear through her left arm severing it from the shoulder. Her blood didn't even spurt as he had such control of this ability that time hardly moved forward. Plunging his blade into her stomach, he lifted her up above his head before holding his other blade up and span her around just as he let go of his control. He heard a very shrill scream as all off Hana's limbs were sliced off before her head fell to the ground and her scream ended.

As her blood fell on him, he felt his own settle down as content filled his body. It sickened him slightly to know that he was satisfied by slaying her, but he knew he would have had to come with terms with it. He was no longer human, even if he continued to act like one. His blood was different and demanded things that others would not understand. Revenge was the most often, however there were some things he would like not to be demanded of and he did his damndest to ignore it.

Hearing a kunai whir through the air, he reflected it on reflect before catching it and was about to return it to its owner when he saw the owner fall to the ground, lifeless. He merely raised his eyebrow as he saw no visible mark that signified his death until he noticed a senbon in the back of his head. Seeing the direction it came from, he saw the dark tanned girl that surrendered her fight against Gaara jump down allowing him to see her scarred head band. "Sorry, I was a little slow there."

"It wasn't needed, but thank you. Is there anyone else that can be saved?" Naruto asked as he formed another Rasengan and threw it at a chunin that tried to attack Tenten from behind and grinded his head into a bloody dust.

"No. Sakura, Shino and Sai can't be deterred from their path. Why do you ask?" Tenten said curious as she was about to repay the favor when Naruto spun faster then she could see and severed the jounin's head from his body.

"Because I need you to get out any of our forces from this area. I'm going to destroy it." Naruto said dead serious as two clones appeared besides him as he raised his hand into the air and a dense ball of youki formed before four spikes began to surround it. The two clones popped out of existence as their purpose was finished as Naruto spoke. "I'll give you a minute to get them out of here, now go."

Tenten nodded as she rushed off and quickly got to what Naruto asked off her as a few of his clones took everyone's attention away from their opponents. Going person to person and avoiding those that attached her, she got as many as she could before retreating herself as Naruto jumped as high as he did in Kiba's battle with the attack still in hand. Just as she got out of the arena, she heard a loud bang before wind erupted from the epicenter of the impact and knocked her on her chest. Turning around and sitting up, she watched the arena crumbled from under the force of the technique and saw nothing but a crater as Naruto landed safely.

Looking at the damage he had caused, he saw that the battle was beginning to wind down as Kyuubi was no longer in his fox demon form and he could no longer sense or see Gobi using any Wind Scars. Remembering the odd feeling her felt on the roof top, he focused his attention there before sensing a three point kunai was embedded there. Narrowing his eyes at this, he turned into a flicker of black and red light before appearing in the middle of the roof top to see Orochimaru putting down a battered Tsume. "Alright… I'll allow you to live, but you will have to prove yourself like your son did. …Naruto, why are you here?"

"Son?"

The voice froze Naruto's body as he heard a voice that he had not heard in twelve years. He wasn't sure how he recognized it, but he did. He knew who exactly the voice belonged to as he turned around as his body trembled lightly. "Father… But how?"

Minato mentally frowned as he could not sense any chakra from his son. Only banpai ryoku and youki and he instantly was able to piece more of the puzzle together as he knew Orochimaru had left some of it out when he transferred the memories of what happened. However before he could answer, Rayne did so as she stepped besides him. "Orochimaru used a technique that can bring someone back to life for a limited time. He brought back your father to prove to them everything the council had done these last twelve years was not what he or any other Hokage would have done."

Naruto numbly nodded as he heard what Rayne said but his focus was still completely on his father. Minato closed his eyes knowing his time was almost done before Rayne touched him and allowed him to view her memories as he activated the jutsu he had used on Orochimaru. Once they finished, he opened his eyes before sighing as he walked over to Naruto and enveloping a hug in him. He knew that Naruto didn't have the best life, but he had wished he had a better one then the one had lived, even as of now. He wished things hadn't turned out the way they had, but he would give his son one last gift before departing back to the other world.

Chakra erupted around him in an amazing display before it began to seep into Naruto, whose eyes widened as his body began to tremble as his father's power entered his body. He winced as he watched his son bite his lip, but he whispered into his ear. "The pain will pass, but this is payment for my mistake… My power will be yours, so use it well my son. Goodbye and remember, both I and your mother will always love you."

As the chakra finished seeping into him, Naruto passed out from the strain before Minato caught him. Knowing his time was limited, he slowly handed his son to Rayne before turning to the two elderly toads then Jiraiya as he reached the tower having felt his old student’s power. "Jiraiya, I know Naruto hasn't signed the toad contract, but now I've infused my chakra into him and it is building a chakra system within him and he will become even more powerful once he learns how to fuse all three of his energies. Until then, he will be a little weaker as he adjusts to his new addition."

Jiraiya and Rayne were thrown back by this before the latter nodded her head as she stroked the hair of her adopted son. She knew his father wanted the best for him and he wanted to give him the edge against anyone and everyone.

Turning to the two elderly toads known as Pa and Ma, Minato smiled one last time. "I don't have much time left, so I'll make this quick. I want you both to teach Naruto how to infuse sage chakra with his own to make him even more powerful then before. I know of Madara thanks to Akira and I know it will be Naruto that will be the one that ends all this and he will need everything he can get. Are you up to train one more?"

Ma just nodded her head as Pa looked at the boy and smiled lightly. "It will be an honor to train your son, pup. Once Jiraiya has gotten him to sign the contract and he can summon Bunta, we'll take him in and train him."

Minato smiled as he turned to Rayne as the dust that made his body began to fade. "Rayne, thank you for taking care of my boy and doing what you had to. I'm eternally grateful for that and to let you know, your sister thanks you from the bottom of her heart. …Tell Naruto I love him and his mother misses him."

Rayne only nodded as the dust that formed Minato's body began to disintegrate into the wind before nothing was left. As he left, a small smile graced her lips as she saw both Gobi and Yugito walk over as Kyuubi was behind them with a somber expression. "It is over. Konoha has been cleansed. Now all that is left is to choose a new leader.”

Tsunade nodded as she finally joined the group and walked besides Jiraiya. "Yes it is and it was unanimously chosen before we arrived. Jiraiya is too important to take out of the field due to his spy network and my best work will come from me being at the hospital and training a new generation of medics. …Orochimaru, congratulations! You are now the Godaime Hokage of Konoha."

Orochimaru's voice echoed throughout Konoha that exact moment. "WHAT?!"

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A/N: And there is Volume 2. I've had this done for a while now... But I forgot that I had an account here on MM.net. And also because I forgot and I lost spirit for this story I ended it far quicker then I ever originally planned.

It doesn't here, but it will end on the next short Volume. I wanted it to be five volumes but I lost interest and finished it early.