NARUTO 18

About a week before the finals of the Chuunin Exam tournament, Carl noticed the large influx of visitors coming to watch the fights. As expected, there were many nobles and rich merchants who were looking to see what the future ninja of Konoha, Suna, and New Uzushio could offer them.

The secondary purpose behind the tournament fights was basically free advertising to future clients. The more they impress the clients, the more likely they were to hire their ninja in the future, which made money for Konoha.

Since Konoha, Kumo, and Iwa were on poor terms with each other, they never sent any teams to the other villages when it was time for the chuunin exams. They were worried that their teams would suffer from an "accident" in the trials. All three villages were the same, refusing to send any teams of fresh and promising meat into the grinder as a sacrifice.

So it wasn't really any surprise to anyone that the finals of the Chuunin Exam in Konoha didn't have any teams from Kumo or Iwa. And since Kiri was recovering from a civil war, it wasn't surprising they weren't back up to par just yet with the quality of their genin.

On the day the tournament was to finally begin, the weather was clear and the temperature mild. It was a perfect day for the spectators to enjoy a tournament. The Silver Flight Consortium had vendors spread through the stands, selling snacks, drinks, and other refreshments to the audience. It almost felt like a baseball game, from looking at the bleachers.

Carl and the rest of the chuunin hopefuls gathered in the competitors box right off the fighting grounds with a good view of the combat area as they waited for the event to start.

"So, who do you think will win in the first round, Carl?" Naruko asked. She was on the edge of her seat, bouncing her feet in anticipation as she sat between Carl and Hinata.

Carl took a moment to look at the 18 competitors. All of them except for Sasuke were his friends. They had all had training from him, so it was anyone's guess, really, who would win. Except for Sasuke. He was for sure going to lose.

"Since I don't know the matchups, the only thing I can say for sure is that Sasuke is going to lose." Carl bluntly said with a chuckle. His smile got wider when he saw that Sasuke had heard him from where he was seated across the room and was scowling his way.

"That's so mean, brother. He's your teammate, shouldn't you care more about him?" Hinata asked with a subtle mocking tone in her voice for the Uchiha. She knew how he felt about the Uchiha, he had ranted about the pest enough over the past few months. But she was happy that she wasn't his teammate. Thank goodness Naruko got her father to pull some strings so none of the girls were teamed up with him.

"Meh, he deserves it." Sakura, who was sitting next to Hinata with Ino on her other side, added her two cents. "He's always being creepy and staring at us; and he doesn't take his training seriously, so I hope he loses."

"As long as whoever fights him doesn't let him show off his moves, I'll be happy. Cause then he won't get promoted for sure." Yakumo added on from where she sat to his left.

"What do you mean, show off his moves to get promoted?" Naruko asked, confused. She was leaning forward so she could look past Carl over to where Yakumo was seated.

"As far as promotions go, it doesn't really matter if you win your match or not." Yakumo explained. "You just have to show that you have the qualities of a chuunin and the group that decides on promotions will see that and promote you."

"You might have all the qualities to lead a team of ninja, but end up in a match against someone personally stronger than you, or that has moves to counter your moves." Carl continued the explanation. "And if you were in a team, your teammates would be able to bolster your moves or shore up your weaknesses."

"Okay, I get that. But how does individual matches show off your ability to be a team leader?" Naruko asked, still confused as she gazed up at Carl's eyes. Yakumo on the other side of him also had her gaze fixed on Carl's profile.

"Well…that's a good point, actually." Carl conceded. "I suppose they look for steadiness of mind as well as a tactical mindset. If you go out there all hot headed and fighting without thinking about your opponents skills, then even if you won, chances are you definitely won't get a promotion. But if you show off the ability to think and plan your battle while considering your own and your opponents skills and strategies, then that's probably a quality they look for in their chuunin."

"That makes more sense." Naruko replied, relieved to have the answer be so straightforward.

Carl could see Naruko, Hinata, Yakumo, Hanako, Karin and the rest of his friends considering how they were going to alter their strategies so they could show off their ability to plan and strategize, instead of just trying all they could to beat their opponent. Everyone wanted a promotion, after all.

"Hello, and welcome to the Chuunin Exam Tournament. Thank you all for coming." The referee for the tournament began speaking from the middle of the arena. "My name is Hayate Gekko, and I'll be officiating the tournament. There really aren't any rules, but be aware that excessive cruelty may be punished and lessen the chances to be awarded the rank of Chuunin. Now, our matches will be decided by random selection."

Hayate reached into a bag and pulled out two strips of paper.

"Okay, it looks like our first match up is Kiba Inuzuka versus Sasuke Uchiha. Would the two fighters come on out."

"Alright, Akamaru! We're the first up! Let's do this!" Kiba called out in excitement as he jogged out to the field. Akamaru barked in excitement too.

When Akamaru had finally been born and shown up at the beginning of their last year in the academy on Kiba's head, Carl had gifted the little nin-dog a belt designed to grow with him that would maximize his training and keep up with Kiba.

The fact that Carl cared more about his nin animal than Sasuke wasn't lost on Kiba, who really appreciated the gift Carl gave to Akamaru.

Kiba showed a lot of enthusiasm as he ran out to take his position. Sasuke, on the other hand, tried to play it cool and strutted out at a walking pace. There were plenty of idiot civilians in the crowd that cheered on the Uchiha, but Carl was glad to see that the ninja didn't do anything of the sort, preferring to withhold judgment until they saw action. They were waiting for the results of the match to judge the Uchiha's worth. Especially the civilian raised ninja who had made it into the ninja ranks were actually quite disgusted with what they had heard of the privileges given to Sasuke in the past.

Immediately upon the start of the match, Kiba and Akamaru separated to attack Sasuke from either side. Akamaru used a jutsu to transform into a Kiba clone, and they both did the joint attack, Fang Passing Fang. They turned into whirling dervishes that was like a drill in the air. They first attacked at the same time, but Sasuke was able to dodge, barely.

Sasuke threw some shuriken and kunai that Kiba and Akamaru effortlessly dodged.

Next Kiba and Akamaru alternated their attacks, so the second one could land a hit when Sasuke dodged the first. Sasuke managed to do the hand signs for his grand fireball jutsu, breathing in deeply. When Kiba saw Sasuke preparing his fireball, he diverted his attack to dodge the fireball.

Sasuke, though, had been standing still while charging up the fireball long enough for Akamaru to get a chance to barrel into his back, knocking Sasuke into the air, almost hitting his own fireball. That was all Kiba needed, and he drilled into Sasuke from above, driving him into the ground with great force and knocking the Uchiha out for the count.

"Winner: Kiba Inuzuka!" A bark from Akamaru reminded Hayate. "And Akamaru!" A happy bark and tail wag from Akamaru told Hayate he did it right.

The medics then came and took the unconscious Sasuke away.

Once Kiba and Akamaru were back in the competitors room, he excitedly accepted all the congratulations for beating up Sasuke so quickly.

"Okay, the next match up will be Karin Uzumaki versus Sakura Haruno. Would the two fighters make their way to the stage."

A little secret that only a select few in Konoha knew was that Carl and his friends from Konoha took regular trips to New Uzushio and vice versa. So Karin and Sakura already knew each other and were on relatively good standing with each other, so Carl didn't expect the fight to get too vicious. Competitive, yes, but he didn't expect either side to be too damaged at the end.

The fight started out with a brace of kunai being thrown by both sides. The two girls blocked the incoming projectiles or dodged them adroitly. Sakura was the first to attempt a jutsu. With a few hand signs in the midst of throwing projectiles, she sent an illusion technique towards Karin, who dodged the first one, but got hit with the second genjutsu, which disrupted her equilibrium and had her stumble.

But Karin wasn't an excellent sensor for nothing, she quickly noticed that she was hit with the genjutsu and dispelled it. But that was all Sakura needed to close in to taijutsu range. In the midst of throwing a series of punches, Sakura managed to do a jutsu that shifted the earth, causing Karin to stumble.

Throughout the fight so far, it looked like Sakura had the initiative and that Karin was on the back foot, only defending.

But at that moment when Karin stumbled away from the series of kicks and punches by Sakura, suddenly a spout of water broke through the ground from behind Sakura, aimed for her back. Sakura had been so focused on the opponent in front of her that she was taken unaware and hit by the spout of water, throwing her forward uncontrollably.

That was the moment that Karin was waiting for, and she managed to grapple Sakura into a restraining hold with a kunai at Sakura's throat.

"I lost." Sakura called out the moment she saw her losing situation. "That was really sneaky, Karin!" Sakura grinned ruefully at her friend.

"Thanks!" Karin chuckled in pride. "I knew how focused you get when you're attacking so I figured if I set up an attack from behind, it might trip you up."

"I'll have to work on that." Sakura shook her head in disappointment as the two girls headed back to the competitor's waiting booth as they continued chatting.

"Winner: Karin Uzumaki!"

The crowd had cheered for both girls showing off some well done jutsu, leaving the field of battle a muddy mess.

"Okay, the next fight will be Neji Hyuga versus Gaara Sabaku. Come on down."

Gaara, who had been quietly sitting several seats down from Carl disappeared in a swirl of sand. Neji followed suit and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The two of them appeared on the field across from each other.

Carl watched as his cousin and friend fought in a fast paced match. Despite having the new seal that controlled the one tailed demon raccoon much better than the previous seal, it had still left behind an unparalleled skill in manipulating sand in Gaara. The only thing that was inhibiting him even slightly was the muddy mess the ground was in, since wet sand was a bit more difficult to move.

Neji was incredibly good with their family Gentle fist style, so he had focused on that almost exclusively. Having Guy and Lee on his team might have influenced him a bit in the direction of taijutsu. But his attacks were just not able to penetrate Gaara's sand defense.

And unlike in the show, this version of Gaara had been befriended by Carl pretty early, had his seal fixed, and actually attended his own academy. He was much more active and moved more, rather than solely relying on his sand while standing still with his arms crossed.

But each time that Gaara's sand caught Neji, Neji immediately did the Kaiten rotation defense. He spun in a circle, emitting chakra from many of his tenketsu, creating a spinning defense that shredded Gaara's sand and prevented him from being hurt or incapacitated.

With Gaara's movement skills and ability to block all of Neji's attacks with his sand, but with Neji being able to blast apart Gaara's sand with his spinning Kaiten defense, the fight turned into a battle of attrition, which Gaara eventually won, due to Neji using much more chakra to use his Kaiten defense than Gaara used on his sand defense.

"Winner: Gaara Sabaku!"

Both fighters were quite tired afterwards. Neji had finally given up and forfeited when he realized he had no more chakra left to pull off a defense while Gaara still had plenty of chakra left to attack with. Gaara even lent a shoulder to the exhausted Neji as they walked back to the waiting room. Neji almost collapsed onto the bench as he rested where he could watch the next matches.

"The next match will be Hanako Yuki verses Rock Lee. Come on down."

"Yosh! It is my turn to fight the beautiful ice flower of Uzushio!" Lee called out as he jumped out of the window and flipped to the ground.

Carl was amused to see a small blush on Hanako's face as she slid down an ice slide to the field. Girls like complements.

Once the match began, Lee immediately charged forward, preparing to strike quickly and strike hard. Hanako had expected the taijutsu nut to do that, and she jumped aside, dodging back as she pulled out a couple of scrolls. Dropping the scrolls to the ground just after she released the contents, gallons and gallons of water gushed out of the scrolls and onto the ground.

All the while she was blocking the continuous attacks, some of which were so quick she could only lesson the damage by continually backing away.

With one hand she performed a jutsu, causing a mist to rise from the soaked ground and obscure the vision of everyone present.

Lee tried to keep in contact with Hanako, so that he wouldn't lose her in the low visibility, but he ultimately failed as Hanako was suddenly as slippery as an eel in her watery environment.

While Lee tried to pinpoint Hanako by sound, she was able to form several ice constructs. One of which grabbed Lee's feet just as Hanako launched a multitude of ice senbon needles.

Lee heard the incoming projectiles and did his best to deflect and block them, but he was hampered by having his feet immobile. Even though the ice wouldn't be able to keep him in place for long, it was enough for him to look like a porcupine after Hanako's attack.

Just as Lee managed to free his feet and was about to dash toward where the projectiles came from, his body collapsed. Unfortunately for Lee, Hanako had gotten him in an important nerve in his neck, causing Lee to temporarily lose control of his body.

Hanako managed to close with him and placed a kunai at his throat.

"Winner, Hanako Yuki!"

"As deadly as you are beautiful, Miss Hanako!" Lee good naturedly congratulated Hanako on her win, causing her to blush again.

'Is she just vulnerable to compliments on her beauty, or is she interested in the taijutsu nut?' Carl wondered with a bit of a smile. Despite Lee's silly hair cut and green work out uniform, he was incredibly fit. One day during training he had torn up his green uniform and ended up shirtless. His muscles had been tightly corded, reminding Carl of Bruce Lee in his original world. Maybe some of the girls were taken with the sight of his rock hard abs? They were between 12 and 14, going through the dreaded puberty thing.

'Well, it's none of my business anyway who they date or when anyway.' Carl thought with a smile, reminded of his first world where everyone seemed to be jumping everyone else's bones, due to the high tension environment living on a Hellmouth caused. Everyone wanted to live their life to the fullest when it felt like they could be killed by a sudden ambush at any moment.

"Next match, Saionji versus Yakumo Kurama."

The battle started off with a brace of kunai, which seemed to Carl to be the standard ninja "hello". Despite all that Carl had tried to do for Saionji to make his skills quicker to activate, he loved his painting and had made it his main ninja skill. The problem was that it took a bit of time for him to ink in and animate each creation. Yakumo on the other hand had to simply imagine something and pour out some chakra to make it come to life.

So after a few seconds there were five beasties that Yakumo had brought to life that were attacking Saionji, but he had only inked in and animated one tiger.

That sole tiger wasn't good enough to keep the three wolves and two birds away from Saionji, and with Yakumo following her animals in to attack him personally, Saionji was soon overwhelmed by numbers and outmaneuvered.

"Winner: Yakumo Kurama!"

Carl shook his head. Saionji was a great ninja to have on a team, since his teammates could compensate for the time it took him to draw and activate his drawings. But when he went solo, he really needed some other skills. But they had tested his paintings and found that the longer it had been since he had drawn them, the more chakra it took to activate and bring them to life.

Maybe Carl could make some kind of stasis paper with seals that would extend the time that he could preserve his paintings? Then he could prepare a lot of drawn animals in advance and activate them as needed. Carl immediately sent an order to the Yamato's VI to start looking into ideas for creating seals for Saionji to upgrade his repertoire.

"Next match is Shino Aburame versus Kankuro Sabaku."

The fight between Shino and Kankuro didn't last too long, since there was no real way for them to play hide and seek in the arena they had. Unlike in the cartoon, there weren't a lot of trees in the area, it was just a large circular dirt ground. Now soaked with water.

Kankuro did a credible job of fighting together with two of his puppets at the same time, but it was obviously a strain. Kankuro knew he had to try to take down Shino before he could get too many of his chakra eating Kikaichu bugs on him, or else he would be exhausted without being able to do anything.

Kankuro kept back and tried to avoid the incoming bug waves, but Shino was highly mobile, avoiding and confusing Kankuro with bug clones. And Shino had multiple methods of moving the bugs to Kankuro, so no matter what he tried he was soon exhausted due to Shino's bugs eating his chakra reserves, and he gave up.

"Winner: Shino Aburame!"

Just like with Gaara and Neji, Shino offered a shoulder to help the exhausted Kankuro back to the rest of the group while his bugs dragged the puppets along.

"Next match is Nawaki Senju versus Temari Sabaku."

Carl shook his head at the various whispering and shocked looks of those in the crowd who were appalled that a Senju was representing a village other than Konoha. Looking up at the Kage's booth, he saw Tsunade sitting next to Minato and Rasa, Temari's father and the fourth Kazekage of Suna.

It had been an excitable time when Hiruzen had found out that Tsunade had taken up the role of the first Uzukage of New Uzushio instead of returning to Konoha. Minato hadn't been as excitable by far. Not only had he been revived back to life in New Uzushio, but he had seen the reunion between Tsunade and Dan and Nawaki with his own eyes. That, added on to finding out how Konoha had treated his daughter so poorly in his absence and that Hiruzen had failed to protect her, had pretty much burnt away any sympathy he may have had for those of Konoha who wanted to whine about Tsunade, Dan, Shizune, and Nawaki choosing to relocate to a place without as many bad memories as Konoha held for them.

If it hadn't been for Carl and his family, Naruko would have continued to be left out in the cold with no one to care for her, abused and forgotten. And then Carl revived Minato and Kushina so they could once more be a part of their daughter's life. With just those acts alone Carl had gotten a whole lot of leeway from the fourth Hokage in what he could do and what he could get away with. In the face of the debt he felt he owed Carl, reforming an allied village and poaching Konoha's bitter and beaten down medic nin of the Senju clan had been nothing.

Especially because Tsunade still offered to train Konoha's medics, as long as they went to New Uzushio instead of requiring her to go to Konoha.

And Tsunade had actually gotten over her issues with her fear of blood and was no longer a drunken gambling mess. She was once more being an active ninja and medic now in New Uzushio. And as a close ally of New Uzushio, Konoha was benefitting in all kinds of ways. From the Silver Flight Trade Consortium's breaking the stranglehold the civilian council had on business in Konoha, to the high quality goods and equipment they brought, to the expanded medic program that Tsunade and Dan helped Konoha build.

So overall, while the civilians whined about "their" Senju needing to come home to Konoha, the Hokage and most ninja that were loyal to him were more than willing to tell them to shut their mouths about the topic.

The match between Nawaki and Temari ended up being a long chase. Temari with her command of wind jutsu was just too good at keeping her distance and regaining her distance. Nawaki did close in on her a few times, but wasn't able to trap her in close combat. And he didn't use any jutsu that could force Temari to stay still.

In the end, Nawaki lost the initiative when he stumbled into trap that Temari had set when the flying dust had obscured Nawaki's vision.

"Winner: Temari Sabaku!"

"Next match, Tenten Higurashi versus Hinata Hyuga."

The Hinata Hyuga of this world had been training with Carl for many years, and was encouraged to do her best, instead of being beaten down when she made any mistakes. As such she was incredibly skilled, highly trained, and strong willed.

Tenten, while very skilled as well, had only been training with Carl and his friends for a few years, so she was actually at a bit of a disadvantage. And she loved her ranged weapons so much, she hadn't yet taken the time to develop too many other skills.

Hinata was also very flexible, so she was dancing between the weapons that Tenten was throwing, delicately reaching out and nudging them away from her. Despite all Tenten did, she couldn't keep Hinata from closing in on her and closing her chakra tenketsu.

It was a pretty short match, but very intense with literally tons of metal weapons flying everywhere.

"Winner: Hinata Hyuga!"

Hinata immediately unblocked Tenten's tenketsu, pulled out a healing pill that would help the pain from having the gentle fist used on her, and had Tenten swallow it with some water. She then helped Tenten clean up her weaponry before they headed back to the competitor's booth.

Carl gave his sister a congratulatory head rub, causing her hair to be mused, while Naruko hugged her.

"Next match, Carl Hyuga versus Naruko Uzumaki."

"Ready to show the crowd what you can do, Naruko?" Carl asked with a smile.

"Yeah! I'm finally taking you down, Carl!"

"Hehe, you're welcome to try!"

The two of them jumped down and took their positions on the field.

At the start of the match the traditional kunai were thrown. Carl caught the kunai that were thrown at him and began running forward at high chuunin speeds. Naruko didn't let him advance without contest. Two adamantine chains slithered out from the back of her shoulders and began attacking him.

During the time that she had with her mother, Kushina had taught Naruko how to form the sealing Adamantine chains of the Uzumaki clan. They were very strong, nearly impenetrable.

And they were currently trying to tie Carl up.

Using the kunai he had caught, he deflected the chains which deformed the kunai from the strong impact as he advanced. Naruko was keeping her distance while forming hand signs. A spout of water burst out of the ground and targeted his back, but Carl was quite aware of the gathering chakra in that area and adroitly dodged, which caused the water to shoot above Naruko's head, useless.

Carl reached Naruko and sped up his movements to jonin level and the two began engaging in a taijutsu match. Naruko was showing off her skill in the whirlpool style that her mother taught her while Carl used the gentle fist style of his clan.

The chains were integrated quite seamlessly into Naruko's style of fighting, her sweeping and force redirecting moves were smooth as water. Carl coated his hands with a modified form of the Kaiten defense that Neji showcased. It was a miniature spinning top of chakra surrounding his hands that protected them from the heavy slamming attacks of the adamantine chain.

After giving the crowd a good show of their skills, Carl sped up and got several juuken strikes on Naruko, causing her chakra to be sealed temporarily on her arms from the shoulder down, which also caused the chains to fade out. Knowing from the show that she could flood her system with the nine tailed demon fox's chakra to clear her tenketsu chakra points, Carl didn't sit around and blabber on about how he won. He immediately put a kunai at her throat to indicate he won.

"Winner: Carl Hyuga!"

Once he was declared the winner Carl unsealed Naruko's blocked tenketsu. She immediately punched him in the shoulder.

"Jerk. Don't you know you're supposed to let a lady win!" Naruko pouted at once more not being able to beat him.

"Huh. Where's the lady? All I see is a capable and deadly kunoichi in front of me." Carl shot back in amusement, causing Naruko to blush a bit. He knew she wasn't really upset from losing, but she had been trying to get him to give her concessions for being a girl for a bit, and he refused to. He would treat her like a kunoichi, someone who was strong enough to fight and be a comrade, not like she was made of glass.

"Clueless jerk." She quietly muttered once more as she fled, running to Hinata to complain to his sister about not being able to beat him again or something.

Carl just smiled, shrugged and joined the rest of the guys as they waited for the next round of fights. He knew he would pay for his actions in sweets and ramen in the future. He could already see Hinata and Naruko getting the rest of the girls involved in scheming against him, which was pretty funny to him.

The amount of effort and time they spent in order to "trick" him into buying them sweets could be saved by just asking him, since he wasn't bothered by little things like money anymore. He had been around long enough and got enough perks from the Jumpchain that he was swimming in resources and money, and would never be poor again. It was far different from when he first began his journey, but it was amusing to watch what they came up with, so he usually left them to their schemes.

Just because he wouldn't concede ground on the battlefield didn't mean he wouldn't spoil them a bit while off the battlefield. He was just amused that they loved putting so much effort into getting concessions from him so that he bought them things.

By that time Sasuke had regained consciousness and rejoined them in the booth. His dumb face was distorted from anger at his loss and that no one seemed to care about him, completely ignoring his return. Carl just smirked at him in amusement, causing his expression to get even worse.

The next round was split into two parts. The winners from the last competition would be paired off to fight another round. Then the odd man out from the winners and one of the losers of the first round would fight, followed by the losers of the first round being selected to fight each other.

It really was an exhibition tournament, meant to show off the skills of all the genin who had completed the second portion of the exam. Carl was amused to see that the hand waving justification in the show about how the clients were busy and easily bored so they had to arrange for less fights was completely bunk.

The clients would actually feel cheated if they spent all the time coming to Konoha and only saw four or five matches. There was always something to do in Konoha anyway if the matches were unusually quick and the tournament ended too soon.

The first match in the second round was between Gaara and Kiba and Akamaru. Unfortunately for the Inuzuka, Gaara's sand defense and attack was just too good and so Kiba and Akamaru lost.

The next fight was between Karin and Shino. Karin had too much Uzumaki vitality, so Shino's chakra eating kikaichu bugs weren't able to exhaust Karin's reserves before she could do enough damage to Shino to knock him out.

Carl and Hanako fought next. With Carl's Byakugan eyes, the mist that Hanako could raise was useless, and she knew it. She tried forming her mirror dome attack, but Carl was too swift to be caught in the jutsu and was able to attack from the outside. The bloodline jutsu took a lot of chakra, so she was exhausted when Carl caught her and paralyzed her tenketsu, resulting in his win.

Next Temari and Hinata fought. While Temari was very skilled at remaining at range while attacking with the wind, Hinata showcased her mastery over water as she used water whips to attack Temari from mid range and was able to win. What most in the crowd couldn't see was that Hinata had been able to somewhat use her juuken strikes through the medium of the water. It wasn't nearly as accurate as using her fingers, but it did plenty of accumulating damage that slowed down Temari, since Hinata targeted Temari's legs. Less chance of an accidentally fatal strike that way. Carl was proud of how his sister had been able to become adept in the skill he had shown her months ago.

Next Yakumo and Nawaki fought. It was a close fight that Yakumo barely won. Carl knew that Nawaki had been holding back quite a lot in these matches. He had surprisingly enough inherited the wood manipulation bloodline of the first Hokage, so he could have shown more power and skill than he did. But he knew that if he showed off the bloodline skills in manipulating wood, then Konoha would be up in arms to force him back there from New Uzushio, and he wasn't willing to leave his new teammates Karin and Hanako, or his sister who still had no desire to return to Konoha. So he fought with a handicap and lost.

Next up was Sasuke versus Neji. Carl had a smile on his face to see how adroitly his cousin took down the Uchiha. It wasn't even a contest, and it made Sasuke look very bad in front of the crowd. The look of disappoint on the faces of the civilians cracked him up. Their befuddled, "This is the elite Uchiha we were all told about?" Was caught by Carl's ears and cracked him up even more.

After the chuunin exams, even the civilian run shops that had continued to give Sasuke discounts even after the changes in the civilian council stopped forcing them to do so, stopped giving him preferential treatment. They were just completely disillusioned.

Next was a fight between Saionji and Kankuro. Kankuro was still a bit exhausted and sluggish from his fight with Shino's bugs, so it gave Siaonji time to paint up a decent animal to combat Kankuro's puppets.

With his puppets neutralized, Kankuro and Saionji fell back on taijutsu, which ended up with Saionji winning.

Next was a fight between Sakura and Tenten. The long years of training with Carl and his group proved the difference as Sakura eeked out a win. Both the girls were exhausted and had shown off all their skills by end of the match, so the purpose of the fight had been achieved.

And the final match was between Lee and Naruko. While Lee was very fast and strong, Naruko wasn't too much slower than him, having the benefit of her extreme regeneration so her training with the belt had gone faster than anyone else in their group. Not to mention that she had her chains to assist her.

Even though Carl had healed Lee's chakra coils long ago so that he could use ninjutsu like any other ninja, he had found his love of Taijutsu to be overwhelming and had neglected training in anything other than his hand to hand combat. It left him somewhat vulnerable to the elemental and chakra manipulation skills of combatants. He was training himself to overcome those limitations, but he wasn't quite there yet.

As such Naruko was able to keep up with him with her chains and keep him off center, never able to settle down into a rhythm of attack. Naruko was also able to end the fight before Lee had decided to try opening the gates to boost his speed and attack. Although, if he did that, Naruko could have called on the nine tails chakra to boost her own physical capacity. So it was probably better that the match ended with Naruko's win when it did, so that they didn't terrorize the civilians.

Even though the tournament was meant to be mostly a display of the skills of the ninja, the crowd still wanted a winner. So the matches continued

Gaara was matched up with Hinata and it was a closer match than when Gaara fought Neji, since Hinata was more open to alternate methods than just the gentle fist style martial arts. So her use of water whips really slowed down Gaara's ability to manipulate his sand. But in the end he was able to use his sand as a defensive measure and wore out Hinata, barely bringing out the win. It could have gone either way.

Carl then fought Karin, another Uzumaki whirlpool user. Karin didn't have the needed chakra to make the chains that Kushina and Naruko did, since her chakra leaned more towards sensory and healing. But she did bring out the chakra scalpels of a medic. Very dangerous for an opponent.

Which is when Carl brought out his use of earth manipulation to create gloves to block her chakra scalpels. The fast paced taijutsu fight lasted long enough for Carl to make sure the crowd got a good show, before he shut her down with juuken strikes with his feet and elbows. It wasn't something that most Hyuga figured out how to do, so he was showing off a bit.

Carl saw Neji's eyes narrow in thought as he considered how he could integrate that skill into his own fighting style. So Carl nodded in agreement at the unspoken question from Neji that he would help his cousin develop the skill too.

After a short break Carl then fought Gaara. The long drawn out fight with two Hyugas before had already exhausted Gaara a bit throughout the matches. But a soldier pill and a rest had revitalized Gaara's flagging energies.

Carl didn't want to win by a match of attrition, and Gaara had already had long fights that showed off his skill, so he decided to show off a bit. Disabling the belt that kept him grounded to jonin speeds, Carl moved so fast even the Kages couldn't see him. A flurry of blows that took a second, and Gaara was paralyzed from the juuken strikes.

Carl was declared the winner of the tournament, and he immediately freed his friend's tenketsu points.

In the end of the tournament, everyone except Sasuke was promoted to chuunin. They had all shown the steadiness, skills, and ability to think and plan that they looked for in chuunin. Except for Sasuke, who had a weak showing and hadn't demonstrated much skill even in his fight with Kiba and Akamaru.

Carl brought all his friends out to a celebratory dinner at a high class restaurant that was run by the Silver Flight Consortium. The 12 and 13 year olds had a good time partying and celebrating their advancement.