Naruto was halfway through loudly reenacting Shikamaru smashing Kin's head into the wall when he saw pink.
"Sylvie!" he yelled, nearly falling over the railing. "Hey! You're not dead!"
She blinked up at him from the stairs like someone had turned the brightness up too fast. Bandages wrapped around one temple and peeked from under her mesh sleeves. Her glasses had slid down her nose.
"Well," she said, voice rough. "Not… entirely."
He hopped over three people to get to her, ignoring the way Shikamaru grumbled and scooted his legs to avoid being stepped on.
"Welcome back to the living!" Naruto announced, grabbing her by the shoulders, then immediately letting go when she swayed. "Whoa. You alright? You look kinda—" he wiggled his fingers near his own face "—squiggly."
"I think I have a concussion," she said.
Naruto's brain stopped on the longest word.
"Concussion…" he repeated, eyes going wide. "Yo. That sounds like a jutsu name. Like—" he threw his arms out, fingers curled like claws, "ULTRA CONCUSSION FIST! Or, or, Leaf Village Secret Art: Double Concussion—"
"Head injury," she cut in, one eye squinting. "Not a cool punch. My brain feels like it got scrambled and then put back in wrong."
"Oh." He deflated a bit. "That sucks more than my version."
"Both suck," she said. "I can taste colors."
"That sounds kinda awesome."
"Not these ones."
She stepped past him to the railing, moving carefully, one hand trailing along the stone. Naruto hovered close enough to be useful if she fell over, but not so close that she'd yell at him.
Shikamaru cracked an eye open from his slouch. "Back from the exam's chew toy bin, huh?"
"Ha ha," Sylvie muttered. "At least I didn't use my own skull as a weapon."
"That was strategy," Shikamaru said. "Very troublesome strategy."
Up above the arena, the board hummed to life again.
Click-click-click-click.
Names blurred into pale smears, cycling fast. Naruto bounced on his toes, nerves jangling.
"Okay, okay, now it's gotta be me," he said. "Shikamaru got his turn. Sasuke got his. Sylvie got punched into the afterlife. It's my turn!"
"Your definition of 'turn' involves a worrying amount of bodily harm," Sylvie said.
The board slowed.
UZUMAKI NARUTO
Click-click-click.
INUZUKA KIBA
Naruto's heart jumped into his throat, then dropped straight into his stomach and did a weird loop.
"Finally!" he yelled, throwing his fists up. "Alright! Dog boy, let's go!"
Across the way, Kiba barked out a sharp laugh. Akamaru poked his head out of his jacket, ears perked.
"Try not to embarrass yourself, loser!" Kiba shouted back. "I don't wanna feel bad for knocking you out too fast!"
Hinata, standing beside him, flinched. "K-Kiba-kun, that's—"
"Don't worry, Hinata." Kiba flashed her a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll make it quick. He won't feel a thing."
Naruto's gut twisted, anger and something else mixing.
He remembered Kiba earlier, muttering "watch out for the sand freak," jittery with Akamaru half-hidden. He remembered Gaara's sand closing around that Rain genin like a fist. The other boy's screams cutting off.
Kiba wasn't just being loud. He was scared. And he'd decided Naruto was the perfect person to take it out on.
Naruto bared his teeth in what might have been a grin.
"I'll show you embarrassing," he muttered.
He swung a leg over the railing, ready to jump.
A hand caught his sleeve.
He looked back, surprised.
Sylvie stood very close now, eyes a little too bright behind her glasses. Her fingers fumbled, just for a second, then slipped something small and folded into the pocket of his jacket.
A tag. Thin paper, cool against his hip. He felt a faint tick in his chakra when it settled, like someone plucked a string inside him.
"What's that?" Naruto asked. "Another explosion thing? Please say it's an explosion thing."
"Nothing crazy," she said. "Pulse tag. Keyed to you. Just… a little ping. You move a lot. It lets me keep track."
"You think I'm gonna get lost?" he said, offended and weirdly pleased.
"I think you're about to turn the arena into a stampede of idiots," she said. "This way I can tell which idiot is you."
He puffed up, then deflated into a lopsided grin. "Heh. Okay. Thanks."
She hesitated, then reached up and fussed with his hitai-ate, straightening it. It was barely crooked.
"Good luck," she said.
His chest went hot for half a second.
"Like I need it," he said automatically, giving her a thumbs up so big his arm trembled. "Just watch. I'll win for all three of us."
Then he hopped the rail and dropped.
The wind rushed up around him, cool against his cheeks. He bent his knees for the landing, boots hitting stone with a satisfying thud.
Kiba and Akamaru were already waiting, lounging like they were on a street corner and not a murder floor. Akamaru yipped, pawing at Kiba's shoulder.
"See, boy?" Kiba said loudly. "Told you he'd come down. All bark, no brains."
Naruto stomped over to his mark. "Says the guy who barks for real."
"At least I know what I am," Kiba shot back. "You're not even good at being an idiot."
Akamaru yapped in agreement.
Hayate shuffled between them, coughing like the air personally offended him.
"Next match," he wheezed. "Naruto Uzumaki versus Kiba Inuzuka. Begin when I say—" cough cough "—begin."
Naruto rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off lingering jitters. His hand brushed his pocket, feeling the faint crinkle of Sylvie's tag.
'You move a lot.' Sylvie's words echoed in his head. Naruto grinned and wiped his nose.
Up in the stands, he knew she was watching. Sasuke was gone. Sylvie was taped together and still there. This was his turn not to be the one everyone worried about.
Hayate's hand cut down.
"Begin!"
Kiba moved like someone had shot him out of a slingshot.
One second Naruto was thinking about strategy; the next there was a fist in his face.
His head snapped sideways. Pain exploded across his cheek. He staggered, catching himself just before his butt met the floor.
"Too slow!" Kiba crowed, already skidding back out of reach, Akamaru at his heels.
Naruto wiped at his face with the back of his hand. When he pulled it away, there was a smear of blood on his knuckles.
He grinned.
"Okay," he said. "Guess we're skipping warm-up."
He lunged.
Kiba slipped just out of reach, footwork light and bouncy. Akamaru darted in low, teeth snapping at Naruto's ankles. Naruto kicked at him, but the dog was too fast, always a step ahead.
"C'mon, dead-last!" Kiba taunted, dancing backward. "Is that all? You sure you passed the Academy and didn't just sneak in with the trash?"
Naruto swung and hit air.
He was used to being slower than Sasuke. Sasuke was a jerk, but at least he fought like a human. Kiba moved like he had springs in his legs and a second brain in the furball at his side.
"Kiba, stop playing around!" someone yelled. Shino, maybe. Hard to tell when your ears were full of your own heartbeat.
"I am taking it seriously!" Kiba shot back. "This is how serious looks on me!"
He flashed through a hand seal, then bit his thumb and flicked blood at Akamaru.
"Beast Human Clone!"
Smoke puffed. A second Kiba stood where Akamaru had been, identical down to the fang marks and the smirk.
Great.
Naruto's stomach dropped a little.
"Aw, what's the matter?" one Kiba jeered. "Can't tell us apart?"
"Not that there's much to tell," the other added. "We're both stronger than you."
They blurred.
"Huh—"
"Fang Over Fang!"
They spun into whirling blurs of teeth and claws and motion, tornadoes of boy and dog hurtling at him across the arena.
Naruto jumped sideways.
One of the spinning Kibas clipped his shoulder anyway. Pain ripped down his arm, hot and sharp. The second one caught him in the ribs on the backswing.
He flew.
The world turned into sky-stone-sky-stone as he tumbled. He hit the ground, rolled, bounced off something (pillar? floor? existence?) and finally skidded to a stop in a heap.
Everything hurt.
His ribs screamed. His lungs forgot how to work. For a second he just lay there, tasting dust and copper, the roar of the crowd buzzing in his ears.
Up above, someone screamed his name. It sounded like Sylvie. Or maybe his brain was just filling in whoever usually yelled at him.
He dragged himself up onto his knees, coughing.
Kiba and Not-Kiba stopped spinning, landing easily on their feet. Neither looked tired.
"One more of those and you're done," Kiba said. "Stay down and save yourself some teeth."
Naruto spat blood onto the stone.
"Shut… up," he panted. "I'm just getting started."
"Why?" Kiba demanded, real irritation creeping in around the smug. "What are you trying to prove, huh? Did you see that Sand guy? He'd crush you like a bug. This isn't a game. People like you die first."
Naruto's jaw clenched.
For a second, he saw Gaara's empty eyes again. Sand dripping red.
Then he saw something else.
He saw himself, small and alone on the swing outside the Academy. He heard whispered voices: monster, freak, stay away. He heard Kiba's voice years ago, laughing about the dead-last who couldn't do a Clone Jutsu.
And he heard Sylvie, quiet and stubborn, saying: Winning and living are both good outcomes, yes.
He pushed to his feet.
"I'll… show you," he said. "What people like me do."
He slammed his hands together.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Chakra flared from his gut and burst out. Smoke clouds popped into existence all around him. When they cleared, a dozen Narutos stood shoulder to shoulder, grinning, cracked teeth and bruises and all.
Kiba snorted. "Please. I've seen this trick."
"Yeah?" Naruto said. "You seen it used by someone awesome though?"
The Kibas leapt.
Naruto's clones scattered, some charging, some juking sideways. Whirling Fang tore through them, shredding orange jackets into smoke. Clones popped with soft bangs everywhere, filling the arena with stinging chakra residue and dust.
Kiba laughed as he spun, homing in on him with that stupid nose. Even through the smoke, Naruto could tell: he wasn't seeing them. He was smelling them.
In the chaos, something in Naruto's pocket ticked.
A tiny, sharp pulse against his chakra. Like someone tapping on the inside of his skull with a fingernail.
From the stands, Naruto looked like someone had split a sun into pieces and thrown them everywhere.
Bright orange chakra flared below in overlapping blurs. Each clone shared his flavor—bright, messy, loud—but the real one burned a little hotter. A slightly denser core in a storm of noise.
The pulse tag in his pocket helped.
Every time my chakra brushed it, it pinged back at me, a tiny echo: here. The clones buzzed around it like static. I could feel which idiot was the original even when I couldn't see his face.
It cost me, sending those little pings—like flicking rubber bands at my own brain. My head rang in time with the board's clicks. The concussion probably didn't appreciate the extra stimulation.
Too bad.
Below, Kiba and Akamaru moved like a two-headed beast. Their chakra ran together in a shared loop—brown and sharp green, teeth and claws and hot breath. Fang Over Fang shredded clones like paper.
I'd seen plenty of fights now.
I knew what brutal looked like. I knew what efficient looked like. Shino, Kankurō, Neji—they all had ways to take people apart.
Watching Naruto was different.
Every time Kiba hit him, my stomach flinched like it was my ribs. When Naruto got up—scraped, panting, still mouthing off—something hot fluttered behind my ribs that did not feel like sensible team concern.
Butterflies, my brain suggested treacherously.
I watched the orange blurs swirl, that one bright core threading through them, refusing to dim. Pride twisted with fear. Vicarious victory tangled with something sharper, something that made my face feel hot.
Not the time. I pressed my palms to the rail hard enough that my fingers hurt.
"Naruto!" I yelled, not sure what I was even yelling for. "Keep moving! Don't let him box you in!"
He didn't look up, but his chakra flared as if he'd heard me. Or maybe that was just him—he burned hotter whenever anyone shouted his name.
Kiba's twin tornadoes tore through another line of clones. Smoke boiled across the arena.
I felt for the tag again, sending a tiny pulse.
There. The real Naruto darted toward the right pillar, moving fast but not smart enough yet.
"Right side!" I shouted. "He's reading you on the right!"
Shikamaru gave me a look, one eyebrow up. "Please don't coach loudly enough for the enemy to benefit?"
"Tell him that," I snapped back, stabbing a finger at Kiba.
Kiba's chakra was all forward momentum and anger. Naruto's was stubbornness and momentum too, but it had this weird, wild joy in it. He was getting pounded and he was still… delighted to have something to hit back at.
Maybe that was what scared me, under all the butterflies.
I wasn't sure where the line was between being proud of him, living through him, and being terrified of how much space he took up inside my chest.
I just knew that when he staggered, I stopped breathing until he moved again.
He heard Sylvie shout something about the right side. Whether Kiba did too, Naruto didn't care; his head was already buzzing from getting used as a chew toy.
He changed direction anyway.
He juked left instead of right, then doubled back, letting the clones create a messy wall of identical orange idiots. Kiba bust through them, growling.
"Stop running!" Kiba roared. "Stand and fight!"
"I thought I was dead last?" Naruto called back, heart hammering. "Now you're begging me to fight you? Make up your mind!"
Kiba snarled. "Fine. You wanna play? Let's play rough."
He skidded to a stop, panting only a little. Akamaru bounded back to his side, fur ruffled, tongue lolling.
Kiba reached into his jacket and pulled out a small pill.
Naruto's stomach dropped. "Oh, come on. You get snacks in the middle of the fight?"
Kiba flicked the pill into Akamaru's mouth. "Soldier pill," he said. "For real ninja. Not loudmouth dropouts."
Akamaru swallowed.
His fur bristled, going from cream to an angry, burned red. His eyes sharpened, and his chakra spiked—doubling, then tripling, hot and wild.
Naruto's skin crawled.
"Oh," he said weakly. "Cool."
"Let's finish this!" Kiba yelled.
"Yeah!" the newly-red Akamaru barked.
They leapt.
Now there were two tornadoes again, each one faster, angrier, carving deep gouges in the stone wherever they hit. Naruto dodged the first pass by diving flat. The second clipped his legs, flipping him head over heels.
He hit the ground hard enough that something popped in his back.
"Ow," he croaked.
"Stay down!" Kiba shouted, already whipping around for another go. "I told you. People like you die first out there. I'm doing you a favor, making you see it in here!"
Something inside Naruto snapped.
Not bone. Pride.
"People like me…" he muttered.
His whole life, "people like you" had been the category he wasn't supposed to be in. The funny story. The failure. The monster.
He shoved himself up, one arm shaking.
"I'm… not dying here," he said. "Not to you. Not before I become Hokage. Not ever."
He forced his fingers to form a seal.
Smoke burst around him.
A dozen Narutos flashed into being again, faces bruised but grinning.
Kiba laughed wildly. "You never learn!"
"Sure I do," Naruto said, somewhere in the mess. "Learned you really like sniffing me."
He inhaled deeply, because he was about to do something terrible.
"Alright, everybody," he muttered to his clones. "Dog boy wants serious? Let's get gross."
The Kibas spun up again, twin drills of teeth and fur and chakra.
Naruto waited.
Waited—
"NOW!" he screamed.
Two clones grabbed him by the arms and threw him forward, hurling him straight into Kiba's path. At the last possible moment, he twisted, contorting in ways that probably weren't recommended for spinal health.
Kiba's face rushed toward his.
Naruto let it happen.
He pushed, hard, with every abused muscle in his midsection.
There was a sound no exam official ever wanted to hear in slow motion.
Kiba's eyes went wide.
The tornado cut off with a strangled, choked gag. Kiba stumbled out of his spin, dropping to one knee, clutching at his face.
"WHAT THE HELL, NARUTO?!" he howled, voice cracking. "That's against every rule of everything!"
"It's not written down anywhere!" Naruto wheezed, trying very hard not to laugh and also kind of wanting to die of embarrassment. "B-besides, ninja are supposed to use every tool, right?!"
The smell hit him too, and he gagged a little, but at least he'd been braced for it.
Up in the stands, there was a horrified silence—and then a wave of reaction.
Naruto didn't look, but he heard it.
"Gross!" Tenten shrieked.
"H-how unsightly," Neji muttered, sounding faintly crushed by reality.
Gai made a noise like his soul had left his body and Lee shouted something about testing one's limits in all arenas of life.
Sylvie's laugh cut through the rest, sharp and half-hysterical. He heard her choke on it, like she wasn't sure if she was supposed to clap or hide.
Kurenai had both hands over her face. Even Hayate looked like he might cough up more than he intended.
Kiba staggered, eyes streaming, pupils blown wide.
"You… bastard," he croaked. "I can't smell anything—!"
"Good," Naruto said, already forming seals. "'Cause I'm not done yet!"
He slammed his hands together.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
More Narutos exploded into existence, this time all around Kiba, out of reach of his flailing hands. The air was full of orange and yelling.
"Dog boy's nose is broken!" one clone crowed.
"Time for the main event!" another yelled.
They rushed him.
Without his sense of smell and with his head still spinning, Kiba couldn't track them. A clone caught his arm. Another swept his leg. A third planted a fist in his gut.
They didn't go full force. Naruto pulled the hits just enough to hurt and unbalance, not kill. Somewhere in the back of his head, Sylvie's earlier voice echoed: What if that was you? Sasuke? Me?
He was still furious. Still humiliated. Still determined.
But he didn't want to break Kiba. Just beat him.
"THIS!" he shouted, as the clones swarmed, "IS FOR CALLING ME DEAD-LAST ALL THE TIME!"
One more punch snapped Kiba's head back. He crumpled to the ground, eyes rolling, any remaining air wheezing out of him in a soft, defeated uf.
The clones popped one by one, chakra exhausted. Naruto was left alone, standing over Kiba, chest heaving, vision swimming.
He swayed.
For a second, he thought he might follow Kiba to the floor.
Then he heard Sylvie scream his name again, raw and too loud.
"NARUTO!"
It speared through the fog in his head like a thrown kunai.
He planted his feet.
He forced his back straight. His hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles scraped and stinging.
He sucked in a breath that tasted like dust and blood and his own terrible decisions, and grinned.
Hayate stumbled over, checked Kiba's pulse, then raised a hand.
"K-kiba… is unable to continue," he announced, voice still hoarse. "Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!"
For a moment, there was a stunned quiet.
Then the noise hit.
It wasn't all cheers. Some people booed. Some just made disgusted sounds. But enough voices yelled his name that it drowned the rest out in his ears.
"NARUTO! NARUTO! NARUTO!"
He blinked up.
Sylvie was at the railing, leaning so far over it was dangerous, hands white-knuckled on the stone. Her face was bright red, either from screaming or something else. Her mouth moved, still shouting, and he couldn't hear the words anymore; everything was one big roar.
Her chakra burned in his senses—not like Shino's swarm or Shikamaru's lines. Just a messy, anxious, determined knot, focused entirely on him.
His chest did a weird swoop.
She's proud, he told himself. Team 7 didn't flunk. I won one for us. That's all.
He threw an arm up, thumb jutting at the sky, grin stretching his bruised lips.
"BELIEVE IT!" he bellowed.
Pain lanced his ribs. The world tilted. He kept standing anyway.
Up above, Sylvie kept yelling until her voice cracked.
Her face stayed hot.
Naruto told himself that was just team spirit and tried not to notice the way something scarier and warmer than victory coiled up under his bruises and refused to let him fall.