Chapter 22: Let the Games Begin V

There was no way Naruto could have ever stopped something like that. While he had confidence in his strength, he wasn't suicidal enough to directly take on one of the Sannin. The brand though, that was something that caught Naruto's interest.

It appeared to be a Juinjutsu, a branch of Fūinjutsu that he was quite interested in. He made a note to make a copy of the seal on Sasuke to see if he could unravel it.

...

After finally assimilating all the information of his clone, he walked towards the makeshift camp of his team. He knew Sasuke was unconscious and Sakura was absolutely useless at almost everything.

He reached the outskirts of the clearing where the camp was located in about 5 minutes, only to see quite the scene before him. Sakura stood with her back facing Sasuke, in a defensive position, holding a kunai.

Naruto noticed that her previously long hair was now at shoulder length. Rock Lee was also there, holding his right ear that was bleeding. It seemed that he was there to aid Sakura. He also spotted Team 10 around, also lending a helping hand as well as the rest of Lee's team standing on a tree above the action. It seemed that they came to collect their teammate.

They were all facing the lone Otogakure team that caused the scene in the beginning if the exam. He recognised Lee's injury as the same that Kabuto suffered from the blow of the metallic device on the arm of the mummified Oto-nin.

Naruto could only sweat-dropped. In less than 10 minutes that his clone left to meet him, his team was able to get in this much trouble. How was that even possible? As it stood, he couldn't be sure of the intentions of the other Konoha teams, so he needed to show that they weren't easy pickings.

"Yare yare…I leave you for a few minutes Sakura-san, and you manage to land yourself in trouble again. I'm honestly baffled." Naruto said as he walked out the foliage with a placid expression on his face, drawing the attention of everyone in the clearing. Sakura left out breath of relief at seeing him.

"Great, another one of these tree-hugging faggots. They just keep popping up like cockroaches." Sneered the Oto-nin with the happuri-style hitai-ate.

"It doesn't matter Zaku. We'll eliminate them all if they get in our way." Said the mummified one.

"Hah! Now you're speaking my language Dosu." Said the now identified Zaku.

"Arara…I'm afraid I can't allow you to bully my teammates any longer. Is it too much to ask you to leave?" He inquired.

"We are here to kill the Uchiha. We don't care about what you think. If you get in our way, you will die too." Warned Dosu. Naruto just sighed tiredly.

"Haah…People are always so quick to resort to violence." Naruto said.

The one named Zaku was about to attack him, before a vile sensations spread across the clearing. It was disgusting to most of the Genin there, but Naruto was able to recognise it. It wasn't too dissimilar to Orochimaru's chakra.

He looked to the origins if it and spotted Sasuke groggily making his way out of the hollow of a tree. He had black flame like patterns running across the left side of his face, originating from the Juinjutsu that Orochimaru marked him with. The entire clearing was put on edge at the danger that he was emanating.

"Sakura…Who did that to you?" He question. He went on to give some spiel about being an avenger and giving his body over to the devil and blah blah blah…Naruto tuned out his melodrama.

"I did!" Zaku screamed out. Sasuke focused his attention on him. His partner, Dosu, was getting nervous. He understood the implications of Sasuke surviving the curse seal. "Dosu! Don't be afraid of that half-dead guy!" He said arrogantly.

"No, stop Zaku! Don't you understand?!" Dosu tried to warn him but he didn't listen.

"I'll kill them all with this! I'll finish this in a flash!" Zaku declared. He stretched out his arms in Sasuke's direction, before screaming out.

"Zankyokukuuha!" A large vortex of wind burst from the tubes imbedded in his arms, causing destruction in its path. Naruto was going to intervene, but decided to just sit back and see what Sasuke does, especially under the influence of that curse seal.

"They blew up into pieces." Zaku concluded.

"Who did?" Sasuke from behind him before delivering a back handed punch, launching him in the direction of his teammates.

"Zaku!" Dosu cried out.

"He's fast." Zaku coughed out. His and Dosu's eyes widened when they saw him going through hand seals rapidly.

"Katon: Housenka no Jutsu"

Sasuke breathed out five fire balls in the direction of the Oto-nin.

"Don't get do cocky! I'll erase it!" Zaku declared before using his unorthodox wind technique to put out the fire, not realising there were shuriken that Sasuke hid in the individual fire balls, he couldn't dodge and was immediately pelted with it.

"Zaku! Below you!" Dosu warned. But it was too late. Sasuke used his newfound speed to get in a crouched position before Zaku, before swivelling behind him, simultaneously hitting the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees, planting a foot on his back and bending both of Zaku's arms backward.

"You seem to be proud of these arms." Sasuke said, with a sick smile on his face. He bent his arms even further, getting perverse enjoyment from the position of power. He bent them until a snap rang throughout the clearing, followed by Zaku's screams.

The rest of the Konoha Genin look on in disgust and shock at his actions. Ino and Sakura looked horrified at his actions.

Sasuke turned towards the other Oto-nin, that disgusting smile still on his face, ready to take them on as well, before Naruto appeared behind him without so much as a sound and chopped the back of his neck. The marks covering his body receded before he lost consciousness.

"Yare yare….Honestly, sometimes I feel like a babysitter. The two of you seem to have an unprecedented talent at getting into trouble." Naruto commented exhaustedly as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He turned towards Dosu, and spoke to him with his usual placid expression. "The way I see it, you have two options right now. Number 1, you leave your scroll and take your teammates and run as far as you can. Number 2, I beat you within an inch of your life and take your scroll anyway." He said casually.

It put the entire clearing on edge. Nobody even saw him move when he got behind Sasuke. His expression put them even more on edge. The casual way he threw out that threat, like it was an undisputable fact, made them nervous.

"You peace loving hippies won't even try something like that." Commented Dosu with false confidence. He was trying to find a way to make an escape. The blonde looked to be more agreeable compared to the Uchiha, he was hoping he could take advantage of that to get his team out of here with their scroll intact.

Before anything else could be said, an overwhelming amount of killing intent flooded the clearing. It was suffocating to the Genin in the clearing. Pure, unadulterated fear flooded their bodies and minds.

They saw visions of their brutal deaths over and over. They could almost feel the painful sensation of it. Most of them dropped to their knees, fighting the urge to pass out. They would have been shocked to find out that Naruto was holding back a lot of his intent, it was meant as an intimidation tactic, not to make them pass out.

Suddenly it lifted, and the Genin in the clearing found themselves heaving at the sensations that they felt. Most of them looked up to see Naruto, still standing in the same spot with that same unnerving placid smile on his face.

"I'm going to ask again, shinobi-kun…What will you do?" He questioned calmly. Nobody missed the steel within his voice this time.

Dosu was scared out of his mind. He thought that Uchiha kid was bad with the curse mark. This guy in the other hand, was a monster. He had to fight to keep control of his bowels in his presence.

He shakily reached into his holster and placed his Scroll of Heaven on the ground. He carefully gathered his two teammates, never taking his eyes of the blonde, and retreated from the clearing as fast as possible.

The clearing was silent for a moment, before Naruto turned to face the other teams in the clearing, making them tense up.

"Well, now that the drama is over…Do you plan on fighting me for my teams scroll? Or will you be on your way?" He asked evenly.

Team 10 honestly just wanted to get the fuck out of there as fast as possible. They were not a combat team.

And seeing what Sasuke did, as well as how dangerous Naruto seemed to have become, they wanted to leave immediately. They slowly backed away, never turning their backs, before sprinting in the opposite direction.

Team 9 just came to pick up their missing member, so they didn't really care one way or the other. They already had their scrolls. Naruto made sure to tell Tenten to give his thanks to Lee for protecting his teammates.

When everybody left, Naruto picked up Sasuke by the scruff of his neck, walked over to Sakura and grabbed a hold of her arms, before disappearing in a vortex of wind. When they reappeared, they were at the entrance of the tower.

After Naruto finished his impromptu training of his sensory ability, he made about 100 clones and asked them to scout the competition in the exam. One of them made their way to the tower and got the general location just in case Naruto needed to use the Shunshin to get there, like he did now.

He walked into the tower, with a gaping Sakura on his tail. After reading the inscription on the wall about heaven and earth, he realised what needed to be done. He unfurled both the heaven and earth scrolls and threw them forward. In a poof of smoke, Iruka-sensei appeared from the scroll.

"Long time no see Naruto. Congratulations Team 7, on passing the second test of the Chuunin Exams." He praised.

"Thanks Iruka-sensei. However, it's not all happy news. Could you take us to Jiji? We have some information that he might be interested in." Naruto said with a rare serious tone of voice.

After seeing Sakura's scared expression and the passed out Sasuke, Iruka just nodded and guided them to Hokage-same. It looked like there was trouble on the horizon.

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I didn't really enjoy writing this arc as much as the others as I just wanted to get this 'boring' stuff out the way. I know it's a bit rushed and I apologise for that. Hopefully I can make it up next chapter.

I plan of keeping the preliminaries the same for the most part, except maybe changing the order a bit and of course Naruto's fight, because I'm honestly not too confident in writing that many fighting scenes.

I already have Naruto's fights against Kiba and Neji planned out, I'm not sure if it's been done before but I think you guys will enjoy what I have in store.

I plan to fracture Hinata's personality a bit from here on out. I didn't like how perpetually meek she was. I don't mind her being like that with Naruto, but with others, I would like her to be a bit more aggressive.

I plan on her fight with Neji, where he tried to fucking kill her, affect her more than in canon. It will kind of open her eyes to the truth of her clan's treatment of her and her own weakness.

Naruto, of course will be the driving force as well as he will give her a dose of reality. I want to incorporate more of her Road to Ninja personality from now on.

I would love her to be a badass bitch but completely dere-dere around Narut, almost to the point of obsession. In a cute way thought. I want to warn you guys though, the women are going to be a bit crazy.

Like serious personality problems crazy because plain girls are too boring. Honestly, the way it's going, it looks like it will be a Harem. I kind of accidentally wrote myself into a corner with this one.

The scene with Karin kind of took a mind of its own as I was writing it. I honestly didn't mean it to go that way.

I don't plan on having her stay in Konoha, as right now, I only want to focus on Naruto. She will definitely be there after the time skip. She will still be found by Orochimaru, and will still go with Sasuke. Not because she has a crush on him, but because he can get her closer to Naruto.

I will have her be stronger than her canon counterpart as she will believe Naruto will want a strong woman in his life.

I'm trying to give Naruto a similar personality to that of Aizen before he defected from Soul Society. He was the kind and compassionate guy that everyone looked to, who never got angry or had a bad thing to say.

That will be one of the many facets of Naruto's personality. I also want to incorporate Aizen's later tendencies of speaking calmly and genially while still looking down on people.

Naruto won't be a manipulative bastard, so don't worry about that. I just wanted those two facets of his personality.