Naruto was hopping briskly among the trees. He was just minutes from the clearing but he felt more chakra signatures than his clone saw.

"Who else is there? I can feel Tenten so I assume her team is there but who are the other six?" He asked himself.

Naruto landed on a tree branch above the clearing to see three sound shinobi, Team 8, Team 9 and Team 10 and a beat up Sakura and Rock Lee.

'Does it really take all these guys to take down three genin?' He thought with a deadpan.

He held out his left hand, "Room." He muttered as a blue circle surrounded the clearing without anyone's notice.

He jumped down in between the Sound shinobi and his comrades.

"Ugh! They keep appearing like cockroaches!" One of the boys said. The whole Sound group were dressed with some purple camo somewhere on their person.

"You attacked my teammates. Please surrender and leave." Naruto said.

The three just looked at each other before laughing, "Haha! That's rich! Listen get out of the way so we can kill the Uchiha and then we will be on our way." The one whose face was covered in bandages said.

Naruto just shook his head, "I can't allow you to do that. I need him alive to pass this exam, maybe after all this is done you can handle whatever beef you have with Sasuke."

"Dosu, let's just kill this runt and carry on with mission!" Zaku yelled out.

Dosu nodded, "Fine, do what you want. I'll handle the rest." He said as he looked towards the rest of the Konoha genin.

Zaku smirked, "It'll be over in a second."

"This battle was decided before I even showed myself. It's over." Naruto said.

'What's with Naruto? He's been acting different lately.' Shikamaru thought to himself as he eyed the blonde.

"You could both take me on and you would still fall to my blade." Naruto continued.

"That arrogance. I am unbeatable!" Zaku exclaimed as he thrusts his arms in front of him with palms facing Naruto.

"Decapitating Air Waves."

An invisible force made its way over to Naruto. He dodged out of the way and was going to land.

"Ha I got you now!" Zaku yelled out as he aimed at Naruto and sent another blast at where he was going to land.

"Naruto!" Tenten yelled out as she saw him take the hit or so she thought. When the smoke cleared, they expected to see a unconscious Naruto but instead they saw the knocked out Kin with her clothes in tatters from the blast.

"What the hell, I thought Leaf Shinobi weren't ruthless. To replace yourself with an unconscious enemy is pretty low." Dosu called out.

"We are shinobi. We do what we can to get ahead. There is no honor among thieves." Naruto said from Kin's former position.

He looked over to Zaku, "Your jutsu name 'Decapitating Air Waves' was it?" He asked.

"Yeah what of it?" Zaku asked.

"It is not a fitting name. There's no decapitation invovled from what I saw. Let me show you a decapitation." He said as he drew his blade. Naruto swung his blade in a horizontal arc at Zaku's direction.

Many were shocked at how he said he would cut someone's head off with such nonchalance.

There was no immediate effect and many thought he had failed but that changed when Zaku's head started to float as he was laughing.

"What was that about decapitating me?!" He laughed out, obviously to his head not being attached to his body anymore.

"Z-Zaku." Dosu stuttered out.

The boy in questioned craned his neck as he heard his name called. Well he tried to but noticed the ground was slightly farther than normal and he didn't feel the pull of muscles in his neck.

He looked down and screamed, "Ah! What the hell happened to me!?"

"There's no reason to tell you so let's get this over with." Naruto said as he saw the mummy man throw an explosive kunai at him.

He also noticed none of the Leaf shinobi made a move to attack Dosu. 'Probably because it's not their fight. I wouldn't help either, we are technically enemies at the moment.'

"Shambles." He muttered as the speeding kunai was replaced by Zaku's dismembered head.

"W-What the hell!?" Zaku yelled out not expecting the transportation.

There was an explosion and they turned to where Zaku's body was and saw it was scorched.

"Ahhh! That shit burns! What the fuck, Dosu?!" Zaku yelled out.

"How did you do that?" Dosu yelled out.

"It matters not. Surrender or else this guy gets it." He said as he unceremoniously dropped Zaku's head and hovered his sword tip above him.

Dosu was in a tight spot. He could try his luck and fight but with his teammates incapacitated he doubted, even if he were to defeat the blond, he could beat the Uchiha. Lord Orochimaru must have seen him as a threat to want him dead so he had to be strong but why not this blond?

Dosu slowly nodded his head and placed down his scroll from his kunai pouch and placed it on the ground.

"Alright I'll go just let me and my teammates leave."

Naruto nodded and sheathed his sword. He then kicked Zaku's head over to the retreating nin.

"Ack! You bastard!" Zaku yelled out. That shit gave him the worse headache.

Dosu gathered his teammate's head and connected to his body hoping that it would be put back into place. His hopes were answered as his head reattached without a problem.

"Can you walk Zaku?"

"I got hit with an explosion, you dick! What do you think?!"

Dosu sighed, "This is going to be a pain." He groaned as he hefted his teammate onto his shoulder and walked over to Kin and put her on his back and buckled under the extra weight.

He glanced back over the Uchiha and then to the blonde. He then turned around and took off into the trees.

Naruto turned to address the rest of the Leaf nin but was forced to stop as a dark oppressive force beared down on everyone.

They all turned their sights towards the hollowed out tree and saw Sasuke staggering out with strange black flame like marking across the left side of his face. Purple chakra swirled him making it look even more haunting than it already was.

Sasuke looked down at his hands and clenched them into a fist then smirked, "Yes, with this power I'll be able to kill him!"

He looked around the clearing to see his fellow Leaf nin but his eyes lingered on the battered form of Sakura.

"Sakura, who did that to you?" He asked calmly.

"S-Some Sound ninja but Naruto took care of them and they left." She stuttered out. She felt sick being affected by his dark chakra.

Sasuke's eyes drifted over to Naruto, "The dobe beat them." He whispered to himself.

"Naruto, fight me. You'll be the perfect test to my new power."

Naruto just sighed, he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "I'm not going to fight you. We have to finish the exams. Come on le-"

He didn't get the chance to finish as he had to block a fist from the Uchiha. They both jumped away from each other.

Naruto looked at Sasuke with an annoyed expression, "Quit it, you teme. We have work to do." He then turned towards the rest of the group, who looked shaken in fear, "Oi, what the hell is wrong with you people? Get a hold of yourselves!"

He kept dodging strikes from the power crazed Uchiha. Naruto grew very irritated at the boy's attempts to fight.

A white orb surrounded his hand and reared it back, "I said stop!" He yelled as he swung at the black haired boy.

The intial contact made the Uchiha scoff, "I said I wanted a fight not to slap arou-" he was cut off when heard cracking and looked down to his teammates fist and saw that there were cracks in his body.

His body was then racked with pain as he felt like his ribs were shattered. He spat out a glob of blood and was rocketed away from Naruto and the others. He came to a slow and stopped rolling, he was breathing haggardly and the seal had receded.

"W-What was that!?" Was the proclamation of most of the Konoha 11 besides Shino, Shikamaru and Neji. Those three were surprised but they showed it with widening eyes or in Shikamaru's case a gaze towards the blonde swordsman.

"Not really the time to explain my abilities to my enemies." Naruto said evenly.

Kiba growled, "You bastard! We came and saved your team's sorry ass!" He yelled out with Ino agreeing.

"I am grateful to you guys for helping my team but as of now we are enemies, after the Chunin Exams I would be more than glad to explain what just happened." Naruto said as he walked over to the duo of Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura had ran over after getting over her intial shock, she had to check on Sasuke.

All the teams had decided to leave but Tenten decided to linger around, looking
at Naruto's back. He seemed to feel her gaze and turned to face her.

"..."

"We're still on for training after this, right?" Tenten asked with a smile.

Naruto allowed a small smile to grace his face and nodded, "Yeah, let's make it to the next round, Tenten." He said as he turned back around and walked away.

Tenten nodded with a determined look on her face and took to the trees after her team.

Naruto walked over to his teammates and sighed. He really didn't want to carry them and he wouldn't have to if that snake freak didn't ambush the team. He would bear this burden until Sasuke was well enough to help shoulder it too.

-Break-

They had reached the tower in finally four days. Naruto had stopped to wait until his teammates woke up. A couple of teams tracked them down and tried to take their scroll but were sent back by Naruto. Many to this day wondered why there were so many earthquakes in such a small period of time.

The 18 genin now stood upon a balcony looking down on an arena with their sensei. In the arena stood Sasuke Uchiha and a fellow Leaf genin by the name of Yoroi Akado.

Upon reaching the tower they were addressed by the Hokage himself who expressed his pleasure at seeing all of the genin who passed. It turns out that there were too many genin in fact and the number needed to be cut down a bit.

A Leaf Jounin, Hayato Gekko, came down and explained that they would be having preliminary matches to decide who gets to fight when the Fuedal Lords and other VIPS came in a month for the Chunin Exams Finals. After asking for any dropouts and receiving one from Kabuto, they got their first match and asked everyone but the fighters to leave your the balcony which led to the fight below.

Now usually Sasuke could wipe the floor with just about anyone but it was a little difficult with the seal on his neck. Kakashi had told him to not use his jutsu because it feeds off chakra and he would interfere with the match if it came down to that.

'This is going to be more difficult that I thought.' Sasuke thought as he looked at the person before him. He was sure that the boy was smirking under that mask. Someone looking down on him, an Uchiha. Preposterous!

Naruto watched as the Uchiha rushed towards his opponent and engaged in a Taijutsu bout. He knew Sasuke was limited at best with ninjutsu but he wasn't Rookie of the Year for nothing. He had more than ninjutsu to work with but Naruto also noticed that the Akado's hands were glowing blue.

'Why is he sending chakra to his hands?' He thought. 'Would it increase his punches power? No, that can't be it. He has hit Sasuke and he didn't even wince. It has to be something.'

Kakashi took his eye from the match to his blonde student, 'Naruto looks to be deep in thought. Hope he doesn't hurt himself.' He thought with an eye smile.

Sasuke was having a tougher time with this guy than he intended. He felt his chakra being drained away every time the guy touched him. The usual strategy would be to create some distance and use ninjutsu or genjutsu but that wasn't an option with this damn seal on his neck.

'What do I do? He won't let me get away from this Taijutsu bout, it's almost like he knows I can't use chakra. If only I had my Sharingan, I would wipe the floor with this smug bastard.'

The lapse of thinking was enough for Akado to get in to his guard and grab Sasuke and slam him into the ground. He felt his chakra being drained at an exponential rate.

Sasuke grit his teeth and kicked Akado his gut and created to room to get to his feet.

'Damn, he took half of my chakra. I have to end this quickly.'

"You see that it is pointless. Any body part that I touch I can take your chakra." Akado bragged with a hidden smirk.

Sasuke started to think of how hopeless it was looking without his ninjutsu and Naruto took note of it.

"Sasuke, you better not tell me that a simple handicap like this will let you lose to this guy." Naruto declared from the balcony.

Sasuke glared at the blonde and was going to retort when he looked over to the bowl haired genin, Rock Lee and something clicked in his mind.

He smirked, 'Thank you, Naruto.' He thought as he ran towards the masked nin. Akado just struck out with his right hand glowing with chakra again, intending to take more of Sasuke's chakra.

He was caught off guard when the boy disappeared and reappeared inside of his guard. He wasn't prepared to get kicked into the air. He saw the boy appear before him and try to kick him in the gut and put his forearm out to block but wasn't ready for the impressive display of skill for Sasuke to turn his body in the air and strike him in his chest with his fist.

As they began their descent down to the hard concrete, Sasuke added another punch to Akado's chest before turning his body and raising his leg.

"Last one: Lion's Barrage!"

Sasuke's leg smashed into his opponents body right before he connected to the ground and slid back away. He saw that the genin wasn't going to move any more and smirked.

"That'll show you to underestimate the Uchiha." He declared but soon fell to one knee and clutched his left shoulder as sweat ran down his forehead. Kakashi appeared behind him and placed his hand on his right shoulder and disappeared just as quickly.

"Winner by knockout, Sasuke Uchiha." Hayate announced.

'Th-that was the Shadow of the Dancing Leaf. He copied my technique in a matter of days with just one viewing of it. Sasuke Uchiha, you truly are a genius.' Rock Lee thought with a frown but respect for his fellow genin.

Might Guy frowned at the scene that had just played before him. 'Lee worked his ass off for to perform that technique but the Uchiha probably copied it when Lee used it on hin earlier before the exam. Still be able to use it just from a glance is nothing short of extraordinary.'

Many praises were given to Sasuke for his victory, even Naruto had to give some points for beating his opponent with such a handicap. Naruto didn't approve of the way he came to be the victor but given the circumstances, he would let it slide.

The matches progressed through the day, Sakura and Ino battled it out into a draw. It wasn't the best display of skill ever and many people's reactions supported that fact. Both were knocked out cold and placed on the balcony with their team.

Shikamaru had defeated the kunoichi from the Sound Squad. She used sound to put him under genjutsu but failed to realize she was falling into Shikamaru's trap. He forced her to forfeit or become a pin cushion.

"Naruto Uzumaki and Kiba Inuzuka, please come down."

"Whoo, we get to have some payback for what you said in the forest! Right, Akamaru?!" Kiba exclaimed as he jumped down from the balcony with his dog companion tucked in jacket.

Naruto walked down the stairs slowly and met Kiba in the middle with the proctor standing between them.

"The match between Uzumaki Naruto and Kiba Inuzuka will now begin." Hayate declared as he jumped to the sidelines.

The two combatants just stood there before Kiba broke the silence between them, "You know it is hopeless, Naruto. You were the dead last and you only made it this far because of Sasuke and Sakura. Just give up and go home already."

"You couldn't beat those three Sound shinobi with ten to three odds. Don't talk to me about luck, dog boy." Naruto replied.

"You bastard!" Kiba yelled as he charged into engage in a taijutsu bout.

He went for a right downward claw swipe and Naruto ducked under his arm before he retaliated with a quick jab to the mid section. Kiba then remembered what happened to Sasuke earlier and swiftly dodged.

'I have to stay away or I'm going to end up like Sasuke.'

"You are probably thinking that you have to stay away from my fist but that doesn't really solve your problems." Naruto spoke as he drew his sword.

"If you can't get past my blade then you can not win." Naruto said as he started to walk towards Kiba slowly.

Kiba growled and made the 'Ram' handseal, "Ninpo: Four Legs Technique." Kiba yelled as his chakra flared and he bent down and started to stand much like a quardruped animal. His teeth and fingernails grew longer and sharper that they looked like fangs and claws respectively. His eyes turned into animalistic slits making his already feral appearance more feral.

"Here I go!" Kiba declared as he took off faster than before and on all fours. He leapt into the air and curled into a ball intent in hurling into Naruto.

'I don't really want to kill him so I can slice him with my sword. I also don't want to be put on the defensive.'

Naruto just placed his sword in it's scabbard and placed one hand on the handle and the other on the scabbard and bent his knees.

'That stance, where did he learn to draw that sword for the Iaido style?' Hiruzen thought as he racked his mind to think of who could have taught the boy such a technique.

Once Kiba got within five meters, Naruto made his move. Quicker than most of the genin could comprehend, Naruto was behind Kiba with his sword drawn with drops of blood dripping from the edge. He stood up straight and spun his sword whilst flicked off the blood and put his blade back in the scabbard.

At the sound of his sword being returned to it's rightful place, a thin spray of blood shot from Kiba's chest from a large wound that went from his right hip up to his left shoulder. He fell to his knees while holding his chest wound to attempt to stop the bleeding.

'How? How did the dead last get this strong so fast?' Kiba growled mentally.

"That would isn't enough to kill you but it will if you don't get it treated soon." Naruto said.

"I'm not leaving here until you are on the ground before me. Akamaru!" Kiba called to his parnter. The small dog scampered over the brown haired boy, who took a small pill from his pouch and fed it to the dog.

Naruto felt Akamaru's chakra jump a bit and saw that he was engulfed in a puff of smoke and out came an exact copy of Kiba with all his injuries as well.

Kiba took a smoke pellet from his pouch as well and dropped it in between Naruto and himself. A smoke cloud enveloped trio of fighters and everyone waited with baited breathe.

"Fang over Fang!" They heard Kiba declare. The spectators saw Kiba and Akamaru plow out of the smoke spinning very fast almost like they were a drill. They moved in sync that was only possible through complete trust and many hours of practice.

They weaved in and out of the smoke and many heard the grunts of what they assumed was Naruto being hit. They saw something burst from the smoke and saw that it was Kiba.

"You know, there are a couple things that you can't hide when you do a transformation. Especially one as poor as the one Akamaru did." Naruto said as he had the other Kiba by the hood of his jacket.

"You still have that gash on your chest and I could still smell the blood leaking from it. Second, Akamaru can't change his bone structure with the transformation skill he has in thst jutsu." Naruto explained. Many gained a confused look at the supposed dead last explaining a jutsu and his seeing the dog's bones.

Kakashi's black eye narrowed at Naruto's own glowing white eyes. 'What is that? Naruto doesn't have a dojutsu.'

Naruto brought out his sword and held it across the throat of the Kiba he had in his hand. "Surrender."

"...Fine, I surrender. Just get that sword out of my face. It gives me a bad feeling." Kiba growled out.

Naruto complied and sheathed his sword while dropping Kiba on his ass.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!"

Naruto walked away while the medics rushed to check on Kiba and the gash on his chest. Naruto clutched his eyes as they throbbed in pain.

'At least it doesn't hurt as much as last time. Maybe it will get to the point that I barely feel pain when I use it.' Naruto thought as he stood next to his sensei.

"That was an impressive win, Naruto. Good job." Kakashi commented while glancing at the blonde from his usual orange book.

"Thanks." Naruto said while looking at the board. The next names called where Temari of the Sand and Tenten of the Leaf.

"Can I ask about your eyes at the end of the match?"

"What about them?" Naruto responded without missing a beat.

"You don't have a dojutsu but your eyes were glowing a bright white. Care to explain?"

"I don't know what you mean, sensei. My eyes felt normal the whole match."

Kakashi just 'hmmed' in thought and let the topic drop, no need in pushing it.

The match between Tenten and Temari was some what one-sided. Tenten threw a barrage of ninja weapons from a scroll but Temari was an adept wind user and could just blow away the weapons before they touched her.

Even bringing out her best two scrolls and using the Rising Twin Dragons did nothing to the kunoichi from the Hidden Sand Village.

Many saw that this was a hopeless cause but Naruto saw it as a learning experience for Tenten.

The match was decided when Temari sent multiple blades of wind at Tenten. She dodged a few but some hit her as well.

Temari decided to end it by blasting Tenten up into the air with a tornado and setting down her battle fan to where Tenten would land on her backside, possibly breaking her spine and ending her shinobi career.

Before Tenten could hit the fan, Naruto appeared on top of the fan and caught the battered girl and saving her from a lot of pain.

"That wasn't very nice. She could have broken her spine and never walked again." Naruto stated and her jumped off the fan with Tenten in his arms.

"Pray we don't meet in the next round." He said as he walked over to the medics. He heard Hayate call the match as a disqualification on Tenten's part and Temari was labeled the winner.

"I-I'm weak." Tenten said as she put an arm ovet her eyes to hide her tears.

"Possibly or it could have just been a bad match up. Either way look at this as a opportunity to get better and expand your skills." Naruto said and he placed her on a stretcher they had prepared for the brunette.

"We're still training after this, right?"

"Of course."

Naruto watched as they took her to the med room and he turned around after they were out of sight and glared at the blonde kunoichi on the balcony.

He felt someone staring at him and saw the redhead next to her was staring at him with a strange expression on his face.

'What's his problem?' He thought. He looked to the board again and he saw the next two combatants: Rock Lee and Gaara of the Sand.