Chapter 28: Chapter 27: Welcome to the Real World I
There was a loud chattering of excitement that spread throughout the large stadium in Konoha, as the numerous spectators were eagerly anticipating the start of the finals. Nobles from all over the Elemental Nations gathered to catch a glimpse of the talent on display, and potential shinobi for hire in the future.
The participants were all lined up in the middle of the arena, facing a man with a bandana style hitai-ate tied backwards, chewing on a senbon. Curiously, there were only 7 on the potential 9 participants currently assembled. The Oto-nin Dosu and well as Uchiha Sasuke were both missing.
"My name is Shiranui Genma and I will be the proctor for the final portion of this exam." The bandana wearing guy said.
"What happened to the other guy, the one with the cough?" Shikamaru asked as he raised his hand.
"He is currently indisposed, therefore I will conduct this portion. Is that a problem?" He questioned. Seeing no objections, he continued. "After receiving word that Dosu from Oto has withdrawn, the fourth match will now be Temari VS Shikamaru.
Everything else remains unchanged. Listen up. Although the landscape is different, the same rules apply as in the preliminaries; there are no rules. The match will end if someone dies or gives up.
But if I decide the match is over, I will stop the match. Do not argue with me over it. Now, with the exception of Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Neji, please vacate the field and proceed to the competitor's box." He announced.
Naruto nodded and casually walked away, until he was at a specific spot in the arena. Genma raised an eyebrow at this. Most people just stand across their competitor, but Naruto was more diagonal and further away from Neji in his position. Genma just shrugged, writing it off as some quirk that many shinobi seemed to have.
...
(In the Stands)
"So Sakura, what do you think of Naruto's chances?" Ino inquisitively asked as she, along with the rest of the rookies along with their sensei's and other Jounin, watched from the stands.
"Honestly, I'm not sure Neji will get out of this in one piece." She said sombrely, drawing incredulous glances from those sitting around her.
"What?! You actually expect me to believe that Naruto, the dead-last, actually has a chance against last year's rookie of the year and the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan?" Ino asked in a disbelieving and slightly patronising manner.
"Hate to burst your bubble girl, but Neji was the rookie of the year last year. He's probably the strongest Genin in Konoha at the moment. Your teammate stands absolutely no chance against him." Tenten chipped in.
"I'm not saying he has a chance, I'm saying he is going to win. The only question is, how badly he's going to break Neji." She replied.
Seeing that Ino and the other rookies were still looking at her incredulously, she decided to elaborate. "You don't know Naruto like I do. He's changed since the academy. Ever since we had the mission in the Wave, it feels like he stopped caring as much as he used to.
While he looks harmless, especially when he smiles at you, there are sometimes that feels like I'm in the presence of a predator, like he is just waiting for you to have a false sense of security before he strikes. It feels like a knife is being pressed up against my throat. He isn't someone you want to be on the bad side of.
And I think Neji, by some miracle, managed to get on his bad side. It isn't going to end well for him at all." The others looked at her in contemplation, not sure whether to believe her or not. She looked so sure of herself though, it was hard to argue against. They decided to pay careful attention to the match.
...
(Back in the Arena)
"You should forfeit. Fate has declared me the victor today." Neji declared arrogantly. Naruto didn't reply to his taunt and continued to look at him with a calm smile on his face.
It irritated Neji a great deal that Naruto, who he perceived as a lowly commoner, dared to ignore his words. He did it during the preliminaries as well.
"You are a loser, doomed to failure. You have no hope against a superior opponent such as myself." He continued. Again, Naruto's expression remained unchanged and unmoving, making Neji even more agitated.
Usually, people would get angry and charge at him or give him an opening, but Naruto was letting his comments simply slide off him. Psychological warfare was something Neji used to give himself an advantage. His arrogance and haughtiness upset people making them sloppy.
But this opponent didn't seem to be affected. He was in a quandary. "Proctor, start the match. It seems this failure is too stupid to understand hoe outmatched he is. Allow me to rectify that."
"First match of the Chuunin Exam final, Uzumaki Naruo VS Hyuuga Neji…Begin!" Genma declared as he vacated the immediate area.
Silence.
Both competitors didn't move. Neji continued to look at Naruto with a haughty expression on his face and Naruto had his perpetual placid smile with his eyes closed. If people didn't know any better, they would think he was frozen on the spot.
The tension between them was slowly rising in the arena.
Neji was becoming more and more agitated, waiting for Naruto to make the first move. His comments usually spurred people into action, as he thought it beneath him to make the first move in a fight. It was better to have them come to you. Right now, it was more like a battle of wills, to see who would run out of patience and move first.
The crowd started to start muttering amongst themselves. They were here to see a fight, not two Genin having a stare down. It wasn't long before they became more vocal in their displeasure.
Neji started to twitch in irritation. The pressure of the crowd was starting to get to him. Naruto still hasn't moved an inch. Neji knew that he needed to get this match started, before his nerves became even more frayed. He refused to let this loser dictate the pace of the match.
As the crowd became more agitated, Neji decided that enough is enough. Even though it went against his usual beliefs, he couldn't allow this standstill to go on any longer. He kicked off the ground with impressive speed, that most spectators found hard to follow, and appeared right in front of Naruto, his fingers outstretched for a strike.
At the last minute, Naruto backtracked, causing Neji to miss, and for him to occupy Naruto's previous position. Nobody saw it, but the ground beneath him briefly lit up.
Neji, never one to let an opportunity get away from him, kept up his assault. More and more Jyuuken strikes were directed at Naruto. His chest, arms, legs and even his head.
However, no matter how fast he seemed to be going, Naruto was always able to evade his strikes, and made it look easy while doing it. Neji was becoming more and more frustrated.
Suddenly, Naruto broke away. As he centred himself, he took up a strange stance. Neji once again pressed the attack, however, instead of remaining passive and evading, Naruto incorporated more attack variations into his evasion patters.
As Neji jabbed his fingers forward, Naruto dropped into a split, before using hands, which were behind his back for balance, as a fulcrum to rotate himself in a sweeping motion, taking Neji's legs from beneath him.
Naruto prepped for a devastating axe kick, which Neji anticipated, causing him to use his backward momentum to backflip twice to get out of range. Naruto, seeing his opponent move away, allowed his outstretched leg to return to position.
Seeing that he got the basic feel of his opponents Taijutsu, Naruto decided to up the ante. He placed his fingers in a cross seal.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu"
He called out, resulting in nine clones appearing around him. He ordered them to attack in groups of three, while he sat back and observed. His clones attacked Neji from various angles, attempting kicks, punches and grapples.
After the final clone dispersed, Naruto nodded his head, assimilating the details of the Jyuuken fighting style and picking it apart in his mind.
Neji, for his part, looked a little smug.
"Is that it, loser? " Neji sneered.
Naruto, seeing that the regular approach wasn't working, unsealed four bottles of water. After opening then, he rapidly flashed through a considerable number of seals.
"Suiton: Suiryuudan"
A large serpentine dragon made of water, with glowing yellow eyes, rushed at Neji, who opened his eyes in shock. He put his entire effort into evading the monstrous water dragon.
After 2 minutes, the dragon lunged at him, attempting to pin him against the wall. If not for his quick thinking, as well as using Kawarimi to replace himself with a nearby log, he would have been turned to paste.
Naruto didn't look too disappointed, because he wasn't. The objective of the water dragon was already accomplished. Seeing Neji trying to get a second wind, Naruto wasn't going to allow that. He pulled out a handful of shuriken and flung then at Neji, before going through a set of hand seals
"Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu"
The four shuriken that he threw suddenly multiplied into 40. Neji, sensing the danger, and seeing no way to escape in time, used one of his trump cards.
"Hakkeshō Kaiten!"
He started spinning on the spot, causing a revolving dome of chakra to encase him, deflecting the shuriken.
Naruto just raised an eyebrow in interest as he studied the technique.
After reflecting all the shuriken and releasing the technique, Neji panted was panting a little. He quickly composed himself before putting up that arrogant look.
"Hmph, while you surprised me with the water dragon, but with the ultimate defence in my arsenal, you stand no chance." The air of smugness around Neji was almost visible. Naruto couldn't help but sweat-drop.
'This guy is a fucking idiot.' He concluded. He turned his attention to the stands and caught Hinata's eye. Although she still had the look of a somewhat meek kitten, he could see the fire burning in her eyes. It was a small step forward. He motioned with his eyes for her to pay close attention to the match.
"Hoh, so that's the infamous Kaiten. If I remember correctly, it was a technique of the Main family." Naruto said, pretending to look intrigued. He already knew that Neji could do the Kaiten.
He had his spy clones keep an eye on all the competitors. He knew all the moves they could use against him, and engineered counters to them. But for now, he wanted to get into Neji's head.
"I wonder how much time you spent on your knees this month, sucking Main house dick, to get a hold of that technique." Naruto commented, his expression was so calm and sincere, it made the impression that he fully believed his own words, and worked well in convincing others to believe his words too.
You could have heard a pin-drop in the absolute silence of the arena. Jaws were dropping and people were left gaping at the audacious comments from Naruto.
Hiashi, bless his poor soul, was doing his best to run damage control on Hanabi, his young and impressionable daughter, who wanted to know what a dick was.
The Hokage could do nothing but face-palm at Naruto's strange and troublesome habits. He only hoped this didn't reflect badly with the nobles. If only he could get Jiraiya to take the hat, then he wouldn't have to deal with this crap.
He could spend his days reading Icha-Icha in peace. He could already feel a headache approaching. He had a feeling that Naruto would be inducing a lot more headaches in the future.
The rookies and their sensei's were gaping at Naruto. Sakura just shook her head in exasperation and a little amusement. She had become accustomed to Naruto's eccentricities these last few months, and knew he would do something like this, if only to piss Neji off and watch his reaction for the sake of amusement. He had a sick sense of humour like that.
Anko was laughing her ass off at the gaki's comments. He was definitely one to keep around. He was a lot like her, although he made it look so much classier.
Hinata knew that, as the heir of the prestigious Hyuuga clan, she should carry herself with grace and elegance. But it was hard to contain her humour at the situation. It's been a month since Naruto like the proverbial fire beneath her, and she spent a lot of time evaluating her life. She didn't really like what she saw.
While she still loved her family to a certain extent, she came to the conclusion that they weren't worth sacrificing her happiness and her dignity for, just to continually be treated like a failure. If they didn't want to acknowledge her, that was fine, she didn't care anymore. Well she kind of did, as it's hard to just shake off habits and feeling like that. She just hoped that she could cement her new mentality in the coming years.
She had a bit of a grudge against Neji, especially after he tried to murder her during the preliminaries. That, along with Naruto's talk really opened her eyes to the reality of her situation. So seeing the person she admires the most, humiliate her long time tormenter, filled her with an almost karmic joy.
She wondered if wanting Naruto to do more damage to Neji made her a bad person, but remembering the damage that he did to her, she pushed those worries to the side and continued to watch with an almost sadistic anticipation. Kiba, who was sitting next to her, started to slowly edge away.
Neji's face was turning an ugly shade of puce at Naruto's comments. The rage that was coursing through him wasn't able to be contained, and his perfect Hyuuga mask was cracking.
Naruto was greatly enjoying getting under the skin of such a pompous ass. He knew he probably shouldn't, but the temptation to push him to the brink of his patience and sanity was far too tempting to ignore
"It's nothing to be ashamed about Neji. It's like those nice nee-chans from the Red Light District, who took care of me when I was younger, always said; sometimes we have to do things we don't like to make ends meet. I completely understand." Naruto said.
as he directed a look of complete understanding and acceptance at Neji, which only served to make his blood boil even more. The sincerity in Naruto statement made it seem that he wholeheartedly believed in what he was saying.
Neji could hear whispers through the stadium, questioning Neji's obsession with victory, so much so that he would prostitute himself for power. He couldn't believe people were actually believing the blonde idiot.
He exploded from the spot with a renewed ferocity, seeking to obliterate the blonde menace. He attacked with vigour, only to see that his opponent was easily evading him without breaking a sweat. In fact, he hasn't even changed his expression. It only served to increase his anger.
"Stop running like a coward!" Neji roared.
"Ara? I am a shinobi who know, not a samurai. If you want some fair fight, to defend your honour or whatever other numerous issues you seem to have, you picked the wrong profession my friend." Naruto advised, before gracefully back flipping, before taking up a stance. Many in the audience didn't recognise it, but Sakura, who did, widened her eyes.
"Ninpou: Kirigakure no Jutsu"
A dense mist spread across the arena floor, originating from Naruto's position. Most were scrambling to get a better view, but their vision couldn't penetrate the dense mist.
Neji just smirked arrogantly, thinking Naruto an idiot for trying such a pathetic tactic against one with the all-seeing Byakugan. As he activated his bloodline, he realised, with growing horror that he could not see through the thick mist permeating the arena.
Panic began to set in for Neji, as for the first time in his life, he was deprived of his greatest weapon.
Naruto, after completing the jutsu, and imbuing with his dense chakra, let out a small breath and took a stance. With his side facing his opponent, his upper body turned to face forward with his back foot planted and his front foot facing his opponent. This was the starting stance of his personal Taijutsu, the Kaio Ken.
The flow of the match thus far was Neji being on the attack with him being on the defensive. Now that Naruto has the information concerning his opponent's movements, reaction time and speed, it's his turn to take the offensive. With nary a whisper, he vanished from the spot.
It was only thanks to the intense training sessions with his teammate Lee and his sensei Gai, that allowed Neji to somewhat feel the attack that was coming his way. Even though the he had a rough idea that he was being attack, his body couldn't react fast enough to the brutal kick that Naruto planted on his kidney.
Neji gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to cry out in pain. The attack was powerful. On the same level that he takes from his Taijutsu crazy teammates. Before he could even ponder on it more, a vicious palm thrust to his chest knocked the wind out of him, sending him staggering back.
Another kick to his left thigh, a slap to his right ear, a kick to the back of the knees, a punch to the gut that had him doubling over, putting him in the perfect position to receive a knee to the forehead, before being grappled and tossed across the arena.
These attacks happened in quick succession, not allowing any recovery time, or even time to dwell on the pain received before even more was compounded upon it.
All the audience was able to hear was the flesh smacking against flesh of the blows and Neji's grunts of pain.
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