The final two weeks Naruto had to finish preparing for the Chunin Exam Finals flew by incredibly fast, as Konoha seemed to be overflowing with new people and visitors coming to see the ninja competition. He had spent a considerable amount of his time in the summoning realm working on his newly updated taijutsu and sword fighting styles, to better incorporate the Toad styles into his own personal ones he was already learning. He had a pretty good idea how he was planning to take on all the challengers of this tournament, but knew it wasn't going to be easy with the likes of Gaara, Sasuke, and Neji still competing, not to mention when the planned invasion was taking place.
The biggest thing of note to happen during the month was Naruto's late night rescue of the Jonin Hayate Gekko, who had been attacked and left to bleed out on a rooftop from a wind blade attack. Naruto, had just happened to be passing by after a late night trip to Ichiraku's, when the Kyuubi noticed the chakra usage and had him go investigate. His arrival successfully scared off the attacker, but it was touch and go for most of the next day for the referee of the Chunin Exams' final stage, and he was eventually replaced in order to hide his survival.
Out of that unusual occurrence, came Naruto getting to meet the ANBU Cat, also known as Yugao Uzuki, who tracked him down and thanked him repeatedly for finding and bringing Hayate to the hospital in time to save him. She offered her services as a teacher if he ever needed her help in the ninja arts, and even gave him a small kiss on his cheek which made him turn bright red. Yugao was beautiful, she had long purple hair and warm brown eyes, and Naruto was quick to agree to anything she said, including a kenjutsu matchup for the following day to test how serious of a sword user he was.
At the next day's lesson, Naruto demonstrated that he was by no means a slouch when it came to sword fighting, and Yugao complimented him many times during their little over an hour long lesson / spar. She asked who had been primarily training him, as he had several really good habits that could only come from a real good sword teacher, and simply raised her eye when he said he got several private lessons from Zabuza Momochi a month back. His clones and mom's notes had been the only "real teacher" he had, as he wasn't about to tell anyone about his blood clone currently traveling with and training under one of the former Seven Swordsman of the Mist.
Yugao was impressed none-the-less, and offered after the craziness from the chunin exams were over, to continue his sword training and turn him into a legitimate kenjutsu master along with her fiance Hayate Gekko when he fully recovered. Naruto was really happy to get the promised lessons and teaching, knowing that every little bit of it helped him and all of his clones improve, and was excited to have some way to visibly increase his kenjutsu skills. That way, him showing up one day after years of private training from his blood clone, a certified kenjutsu master out of the blue, people wouldn't be examining him for possession.
The only other surprise to happen before the Chunin Exam Finals, was on his lone trip to meet with Lee and Guy to check on them, and see how Lee was doing, having heard his ninja career was supposedly over. While trying to cheer up a visibly distraught Lee, who couldn't see how any injury would stop him from continuing to try and be a ninja, Gaara arrived practically zoned completely out and talking nonsense about feeding mother Lee's blood. Luckily, Naruto's overpowered wind wall, withstood the brunt of Gaara's quickly amassed sand, and Guy was quick to arrive in the next second to interrupt it getting any further out of hand.
"Mother wants your blood too Uzumaki," growled Gaara in a demonic sounding voice that sent chills up the blonde's spine, as he remembered the words Gaara spoke to him after that failed assasination attempt, while he made his way towards the stadium for the final round to start.
He was as ready as he could hope for as he walked to the stadium, remembering his promise to his Jiji last night about not trying to stretch himself too thin, and concentrate on the fight in front of him. They had met for a meal at Ichiraku's, and were able to talk for a bit about the supposed upcoming invasion they still expected from Sound and Sand, and how the Hokage had started criminal proceedings against the three corrupt members of the Civilian Council. All of their findings had been turned over to the other Council Members just last night, in an attempt to implicate and catch another pair of them in a compromising position that would warrant their removal as well.
He was still unsure how much to listen to his Jiji's warnings though, as he could still keep most of his focus on the matches in front of him, his clones were a very valuable resource and were aplenty throughout Konoha. After he left dinner last night, he had continued spawning clones, a hundred at a time that he split off to spread out throughout the underground tunnels underneath Konoha. Along with the several thousand that were already present, Konoha was currently playing host to over 20,000 Naruto shadow clones just lying in wait under every sector of the village except the one that he had yet to penetrate, but suspected led to another section of underground tunnels that were currently being used by someone else.
The clones were all lying in wait for any signal that an invasion started, and were instructed to help out as much as possible by defending the civilians and protecting Konoha and his precious people. Just that morning he had gone by Ichiraku's with clone-pins for Teuchi and Ayame, before loading up with a generous portion of his favorite food to start the day just right. Now he was slowly making his way towards the stadium, thinking about everything that had happened recently, and hoping he and his clones were ready for what he was expecting to come today.
"Good luck, Naruto," came the small voice of Hinata Hyuuga, as the lavender haired girl ducked her head shyly, as Naruto came upon Team 8 wishing Shino Aburame good luck as well, and getting the other members of her team to turn towards him with varying expressions on their faces.
"Thanks Hinata," whispered Naruto back quietly, "I'll teach Neji a good lesson too ...just for you."
"N-Naruto-kun?" gasped Hinata in a blush as her crush moved away from her after smiling and winking, not having any idea how he made her feel.
Hinata ignored the grumbling of Kiba, who had been complaining about Naruto's underhanded tactics still, gave Shino another smile and nod before taking Kiba's and Kurenai's arms and leading them inside to get good seats. She wasn't missing this for anything, and was also still thinking about Naruto and how strong and confident he looked and acted now, nothing like his earlier goofier self, and wondered how that translated to his actual skills. He had defeated Kiba so quickly, cheating if you asked Kiba himself, but she hadn't really seen him fight for long or go all out against anybody, and she wondered if he was going to be strong enough to defeat Neji, as her cousin was considered a prodigy for a good reason.
Hinata took a moment to notice that she was sitting nearby some of the other rookies from her class, as she spotted Ino and Choji with their team leader Asuma, who Kurenai instantly went to sit with. She also recognized Tenten from her cousin's team, and got to watch as Sakura arrived shortly after her and instantly started bickering with Ino. She looked up into some of the better surrounding boxes, seeing the Hokage in the nicest of them all, but mostly looking at the one belonging to her Father and Clan, and knew that they were all excited to see their prized Neji fight, and gave a small smile as she hoped and even expected Naruto to dash any hopes they had.
Naruto arrived in the competitors booth on the opposite side of the stadium from the Hokage booth, and noticed that everyone seemed to be present already except his teammate. Gaara and the other two sand siblings were casually standing at one end, while the remaining Konoha fighters stood opposite them trading glares. Shino and Shikamaru were both giving the Sand genin a lot of room, and seemed to be standing together more out of necessity than any real camaraderie, as neither boy was overy social.
Neji was standing by himself as well, glaring at everyone, but Naruto ignored him completely as he made his way to the other two Konoha rookies and checked them both out. Shino looked much the same as he did in the Academy, with no skin showing and shades, he looked every bit the detached ninja he always was. Shikamaru however, had grown a bit taller and lost a bit of the baby fat in his face, though he still looked as bored and lazy as ever even when checking out the approaching Naruto.
"Is your teammate here with you?" came the question from Shino, as Naruto shook his head, and received a snort from Shikamaru along with a whispered 'troublesome.'
"He'll show," spoke Shikamaru with a lazy wave, completely unconcerned.
"Probably," laughed Naruto, "though ...he was training all month with sensei ...hopefully he keeps time better than Kakashi."
"It is disrespectful to everyone when he is late," came the smug sounding voice from Neji, as if he was lecturing his betters about punctuality.
"What do you care, Hyuuga?" asked Naruto with a smirk of his own, "you'll already be eliminated by the time he needs to be here."
"Oh please," replied Neji disbelievingly, "the day some no talent dead last defeats me ...fate has already decreed that I won."
"Nice for fate," replied Naruto, "then present that decree to the referee ...and to the second round you go."
""Um ...Naruto?" asked Shino very quietly, so as to not alert all the others in the booth, "do you really want to be antagonizing Neji? Hinata says that he is her Clan's most promising prodigy."
"No sweat Shino," laughed Naruto easily, though both him and Shikamaru could instantly tell the laugh was fake, and both wondered just how much different Naruto now was, and how powerful as they watched the surrounding stands quickly fill up to capacity.
They didn't have to wait much longer at that point either, as another jonin of their village had seemingly taken over the referee job, and was introducing himself as Genma Shiranui. He asked all the competitors to wait in their booth until called down to fight, and then started getting everyone pumped up and excited as he announced the beginning of the Chunin Exam Finals, and called the first two fighters. Naruto ignored the loud and exuberant applause for his opponent, as he was from a popular Clan, and considered by many to be one of the favorites in this competition and made his way down to the arena floor completely focused on what he had to accomplish.
"You should quit now loser," came the ugly sneering voice of Neji once both of them were down on the arena floor, "fate has already decided I will win."
"Bullshit," smirked Naruto, "fate is what we make it."
During the little pre-match banter, Genma had moved off to the side, and received the start signal from the Hokage, and after making sure both fighters were ready to start, called them to begin as he disappeared from the middle of the arena to give them both space. Naruto had instantly crossed his fingers and spawned a large batch of clones, hiding more than half of them underground or as fallen debris while the smoke covered most of the arena floor. Neji, who had been completely sure of his inevitable victory, simply waited for Naruto as he had tried launching into another long diatribe about fate, and was left looking around the arena to see nothing but blonde haired copies slowly encircling him and trying to overwhelm him early.
"You can multiply zero as much as you want," sneered Neji as he practically dismissed the clones, despite being able to see that every single one of them had a chakra network and looked identical to the original, "50 times zero is still zero."
Naruto however, ignored Neji's attempts to get under his skin or intimidate him, and traded out with one of his hidden clones just in case Neji pulled something out he wasn't expecting or ready for, and directed his forces to close in and attack. The clones first started in small waves that continually grew in amounts until almost a dozen clones were attacking the skilled Hyuuga at once, forcing him to speed through his taijutsu in order to keep up with the continuous stream of opponents he was being forced to take care of. Naruto meanwhile, was continually re-spawning clones faster than Neji could eliminate them, as more and more started engaging the pale eyed Hyuuga prodigy until it was apparent he was struggling to keep up.
"Heavenly Rotation: Kaiten," came the scream from inside the circling Naruto clones, causing Neji to start emitting a large amount of visible chakra as he spun his body so fast that a chakra barrier was brought up that instantly obliterated anything that touched it including the nearest Naruto clones.
The Kaiten rotation took out at least two dozen of the nearest clones as they had been surrounding Neji, and others attempted to penetrate it while it was already spinning as well. The moment Neji stopped his spinning though, the next nearest group of Naruto clones, all threw kunai and other weapons at him that had him have to instantly go right back into another spin. This time, the spin was much shorter, and Neji came out at the end of it much dizzier than he was previously, and could barely defend against the thrown projectiles that came his way this time.
None of the hits were truly debilitating, but each of them did manage to slow Neji down a fraction in his movements, which would be more than enough for Naruto to end this fight. Neji screamed in rage as he looked out at the arena, and still only saw the dozens of surrounding Naruto clones, his rotations not doing enough to eliminate the overwhelming numbers this dead last blonde was using. Knowing he needed a break before he could use the Kaiten again successfully, Neji started moving towards the surrounding clones, and taking them out with very well placed attacks as his Clan taijutsu allowed him to see and disperse each clone with a single hit of his chakra.
The problem was simply that Naruto seemed to just keep making more clones, and Neji couldn't eliminate them fast enough to truly cut down on the overwhelming numbers, and knew he would run out of chakra long before he defeated them all. Deciding that his only chance was to take out the original, Neji slowly started moving towards where he assumed the original still was directing everything, while making it seem like he was slowing down some and losing to hopefully catch Naruto by surprise. It was definitely a surprise, when Neji roared out his next move, and seemed to start moving in an even faster blur as his hands started emitting small bursts of chakra as they hit the original Naruto multiple times.
"He can use the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms attack," gasped Hinata among the rookie spectators, none of whom understood the significance except for probably the senseis and her Clan in their special box as it was a move along with the Kaiten that were only taught to the Main Family.
"Bye bye Naruto," laughed Kiba as he watched the blonde get pummelled by Neji, and knew from a smaller version of that attack from Hinata that it wasn't pleasant having your chakra shut off, and this was the end for the blonde.
Most people in the stands too, felt that Naruto was now caught by the Hyuuga, who they all now expected to pull off the remarkable comeback as everyone knew you don't fight Hyuugas in taijutsu for a reason. So, just about everybody was shocked when the Naruto, taking all of these blurred hits, simply exploded into smoke half way through, upsetting Neji's balance and forcing him to fall over. Nobody saw what really happened next, as the smoke from the destruction of Naruto's shadow clone hid the original Naruto popping up through the ground and pulling Neji's limbs into the soft earth and trapping him there.
When the smoke cleared, everyone was shocked to see a smirking Naruto standing over the trapped and defeated form of an exhausted Neji, as he held a kunai to his neck. The stands were completely silent, as one of the tournament favorites was defeated so easily by an unknown, who didn't really even have to go all out in order to win decidedly. The Hokage, and several others who knew what Naruto was truly capable of, were the first to congratulate and cheer for the winner of the first match. A moment later the rest of the stands erupted in noise at the incredible display of skill to defeat the Hyuuga prodigy, causing Naruto to duck his head in slight embarrassment at all the extra attention as he made his way back to the competitor's booth.
"Damn Naruto," came the impressed and somewhat shocked voice of Shikamaru upon the blonde's return to the booth, "I didn't know you had that in you?"
"Thanks," responded Naruto with an embarrassed shrug, as he reached back and rubbed the back of his head in nervousness, not used to being praised or the center of attention for a good reason.
Hinata was dumb founded as she looked around at her fellow rookie genin, and recent Academy students, as they all wondered how far Naruto had come to defeat the previous class' rookie of the year so easily. She more than most knew just how skilled Neji was, and for Naruto to not only defeat him, but do it so easily even after Neji displayed some serious moves, everyone needed to be very careful about just how good Naruto truly was. Kiba was spluttering in denial, unable to comprehend how Naruto had not only beaten him, but Neji, a Hyuuga prodigy with more experience and time as a ninja, and obviously couldn't accept it.
"He had to have cheated," hissed Kiba more to himself, but loud enough for the others nearby to have heard, and most to simply shake their heads in denial.
"Naruto wouldn't cheat," mumbled Hinata in response, and though it wasn't as loud as Kiba's accusations, it was easily heard by those around her, and all except for Kiba agreed as they waited for the next match to be called.
"That was quite the performance between two of your genin, Hokage," spoke the Kazekage stiffly, as the two most powerful ninja of their villages watched the Chunin Exams from their high booth, and the Kazekage paid the young blonde a good bit of attention that Sarutobi found very suspicious and out of character for Rasa and promised to keep a closer eye on the old shinobi.
"I agree," spoke Sarutobi Hiruzen fondly, "Naruto has really come a long way."
"Would our next two fighters please come down to the arena," called the referee Genma after the field was cleared and ready for the next fight, "Gaara of Sunagakure ...and Sasuke Uchiha of Konoha."
The applause and shouts were deafening, as Sasuke and Gaara were probably the two most heavily favored fighters in the competition from a betting standpoint, and everyone in Konoha wanted to see the famous Uchiha Sharingan in action. The noise of the crowd drowned out some of the early speculation, when Gaara was the only one to arrive at the arena, and people started noticing that Sasuke wasn't present and chatting grew louder. Genma asked if he should call the match in Gaara's favor, as Sasuke had yet to show, but in a surprise move, the Kazekage himself offered to postpone the fight between the two largest draws of the tournament until the other first round fights were completed.
The booing from the audience was loud and plentiful, as the fight most of them came to see was postponed forcing them to wait even more until they could see their precious Uchiha. Even several of the competitors were unhappy that Sasuke was again being given special treatment just because of his Clan, and Gaara was quickly losing whatever hold he had on his sanity and seemed about to erupt. Genma actually had to call the next fight several times until everyone could hear and respond, and then watched as Shina Aburame of Konoha was pit against Kankuro of Suna.
"I forfeit," called out Kankuro before the match could even begin, causing the booing crowd to erupt all over again, that two matches in a row now had been cancelled or postponed when they all came to see some real fighting.
"What?" came the curious question from Naruto as he glared at Kankuro trying to figure out what the other kid was up to, and why he would deny his chance at career advancement, unless he was holding back for now, "...he's up to something."
"That is very unusual," spoke Shikamaru next to him, as they watched Shino make his way back up to the booth, his clothes and sunglasses hiding any indication of his agitation.
"Well," started Naruto as he turned to Shikamaru, "looks like your turn came early ...kick that Suna girl's ass."
Shikamaru gave Naruto a long look as his words were heard by his opponent, and had to avoid the angry eyes of his female competitor as she glared at them both with such loathing as she made her way down to the arena floor. Shikamaru sighed in exasperation, wondering why he had to fight the angry girl, and also wondering still about Kankuro forfeiting after getting this far, and thought that something unusual must be up. Naruto knew something was up, but was still unsure of when the invasion was scheduled to happen today, just that it was scheduled for today during the exam finals, and he needed to be ready and keep an eye on the Sand Siblings.
The fight between Temari and Shikamaru was somewhat boring for the audience, as they had to wait through and watch the pair trade shots and chase each other around the arena for some time before the action really took off. Shikamaru had Temari soundly beat, but he decided to forfeit as he was almost out of chakra right at the end, and knew he couldn't continue to the next round. Temari wasn't too pleased in winning the match, after she basically lost to Shikamaru, but accepted her advancing into the next round with a glare at both Naruto and Shikamaru, just as Genma called out the names of the last two fighters to come down to the arena and finish the first round, Sasuke Uchiha and Gaara.
Sasuke and Kakashi still had yet to arrive, and as Gaara stood and waited for a long minute down on the arena floor, everyone could tell that he was losing his battle against his temper and ready to go crazy at seemingly the drop of a hat. Just as Genma was getting ready to announce that Sasuke would be forfeiting as he wasn't present, a swirl of leaves deposited Sasuke and Kakashi directly into the middle of the arena, getting several who noticed them to cheer in excitement. Both the Hokage and Kazekage were equally as excited to get this last match of the first round over with, though for completely different reasons.
"Did we make it in time?" asked Kakashi to Genma as he looked around the stadium and noticed all the excited spectators, rookies not competing among the populous, and those fighting up in the competitors booth.
"Barely," spoke Genma with a shake of his head, "we already postponed your match to the end of the round ...hoping you would make it."
"Well, I'm here now," spoke Sasuke importantly, as he glanced briefly at Gaara and could hardly contain his own excitement at getting a powerful opponent to test himself against, already thinking about all the ways he would defeat the younger Sand ninja and show off to everyone that the Uchiha were still the elite.
AN: That's all I have for now, notes to continue are below if anyone is interested. I may come back to this one at some point, but I have so many things up in the air that I will probably let a bunch of them fell away. I was never very good at describing fight scenes anyway, so this was a good stopping point for me.
Step up sword training, start getting experience from Asura/Zabuza
Practicing Hariken taijutsu & researching info on Kushina & Uzumaki Clan.
-learn about Kushina's family sword (Hokage stored in old house)
-learn about father, and Namikaze Clan, new home / estate.
Starts selling his storage scrolls & explosive tags & chakra draining seals.
Chapter 6: The Konoha Delivery Company was really just a food delivery service they started after working for the Civilian Council Member, Saidu Misoribo for one day and realizing the man was blatantly overcharging for his services and then ripping off his delivery employees. They still had six clone employees working in his operation, all trying to find dirt and gather evidence against the arrogant and pretty nasty man, while subtly dropping off business cards of his own company at every delivery. It was also through Misoribo that Naruto encountered the other three Council Members he now had clones working for.
Utane Habishi - clothing store owner (Sand)
Zumi Rabichen - restaurant owner (Sound)