Third Exam P1

Suki woke up before shutting off her alarm. She quickly got up before getting changed. She made sure she had her kunai, shuriken, etc and were sharpened before heading towards the Stadium.

It could hold over 4,000 people easily and a maximum of 10,000. That's about 200 times the amount of space a classroom at the academy could hold.

She was told to go down and wait on the 'battlefield' until the event started.

She did so, noticing that everyone who passed was already here except for Naruto and Sasuke.

About 10 minutes later, both of them entered at the same time before joining them.

"Thank you everyone for attending this Chunin Exams." One of the announcers spoke. "In front of you lay 10 Genin who have surpassed the odds placed against them and have made it here. This is an impressive feat considering we started out with nearly 300 participants. Which means each person in front of you if picked at random would only have about a 0.3% chance of being chosen!"

After talking for another few minutes he nodded towards another Chunin/Jonin.

"Now for the first fight, it will be Naruto Uzumaki versus Neji Hyuuga! Before you all move, I will remind you that the rules are the same as the preliminaries. You fight until one of three conditions are met. Your opponent surrenders, your opponent dies, or I call the match." The guy reminded.

With that said, everyone besides those two headed back up.

"Hey Suki," Someone spoke, causing her to turn to the voice and know it was Ino talking. "Are you worried about Naruto? I mean, you saw how brutal he was against his own family."

Suki glanced down at the fighters before shaking her head. "I'm not worried at all honestly. Naruto would never let someone like him defeat him in a fight. Naruto is determined to go through this tournament as far as he can. He likely trained hard this last month."

"Still..."

Suki released a quiet sigh. "I'm not worried because I trust Naruto's skill. While everyone agrees that Naruto may struggle with academics, he excels through practice. If it was anyone else sans Sasuke, I may be worried of Neji's opponent's shape afterward."

"Begin!"

"So no Ino, I have complete faith in Naruto's ability to send Neji to the hospital."

---------------------------------

Naruto made signs before several clones appeared from a puff of smoke. A few charged forward while others began weaving signs.

Neji seemed to dance around the clones that got close to him before striking them in placing that caused the clones to dispel.

'Wind Style:' A chorus of thoughts went through the clones. 'Gale Palm!'

Neji struck a clone before being sent flying by the large amount of wind. He spun himself several times in the air before using chakra to stick to the arena wall.

Neji released a tck sound before charging forward and quickly got rid of clones.

'Byakugan!' Neji's vein became pronounced around his eyes.

He quickly moved to the side of a kunai that was thrown before slamming a finger into another clone that tried to sneak up behind him.

More Narutos appeared before each held a kunai and threw them.

Neji focused his chakra to his hands and began to spin.

"Rotation!"

A dome of chakra seemed to appear around him and was blocking the kunai thrown at him when Neji was actually spinning incredibly fast and was striking the weapons before they could even get too close to him.

While the Narutos engaged, there was one Naruto hiding in a nearby tree.

'He's only showed that Rotation thing and his Taijutsu, even when a wide-area attack jutsu would have gotten rid of these clones easily.' Naruto thought.

When he makes clones, he can make them with intentions in mind. If he wants them to be fighters, more chakra that is divided between him and his clones are used to make the clones more durable.

The clones that he made this time are scouts. Their purpose is to scout out dangers and focus only on finding weaknesses. While they can still fight like normal clones, they know what their purpose is upon creation.

'So either he's conserving his chakra for his defensive abilities, or he doesn't know wide-area attacks.'

Neji jumped away from a clone before throwing a kunai at Naruto's location, causing him to jump out of the way, revealing himself.

"Is that all you can do? Make clones and a little breeze?" Neji asked.

Naruto's eyes narrowed, not at what he said, but at how casually he said it.

'Despite moving and fighting that many clones, he sounds like it was a warm up. He hasn't gotten focused in the fight just yet.'

"Then again, I shouldn't expect anything else from a dead last right?" Neji provoked.

Naruto frowned at that before making the needed signs before 20 clones appeared next to him.

"This again?"

However, he and everyone noticed that the clones were making different hand signs than the clone next to them.

Naruto began running at Neji.

'Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!' Half the clones thought.

Suddenly, 10 Naruto clones shot forward from the attack, sending them flying past Naruto and towards a surprised Neji.

'Wind Palm!'

5 of the clones shot their arm forward, shooting 5 precise air blasts that Neji wasn't able to completely block.

However, the other five finished their signs after passing Neji.

'Great Breakthrough!'

The large amount of air shot Neji off his feet again and towards Naruto.

Naruto swung his palm upwards, right as Neji's chin appeared over it.

"Great Wind Palm!" He yelled, causing a massive amount of wind to shoot out of his palm, right as he slammed it into Neji's chin.

Neji's head snapped upwards before something shot out of his mouth before he went flying into the air.

The clones had finished their jutsus again, shooting themselves above Neji once more.

'Great Wind Palm!' The 5 clones thought before shooting Neji back at the ground, causing a loud crash and a large dust cloud to appear where he landed.

His clones dispersed, having used up their chakra and what they were made for, sending their memories back to Naruto.

'Using the Great Breakthrough as propulsion still works great. Glad I spent the last few days perfecting it.' He thought as he continued to watch the dust cloud hang in the air.

He made 2 clones as back up in case Neji suddenly shot out of the cloud.

As the dust settled, it revealed Neji who had a slight line of blood running from his mouth with a few cuts along his legs and arms.

Neji spat out some blood, revealing a tooth had been knocked loose.

Neji seemed to scowl at him.

"Fine, you want to get serious, then so be it."

Neji darted towards them, causing the clones to charge forward as well.

However, when they got in range, they were struck in the neck, causing instant dispersal.

Naruto readied himself before shooting a blast of wind into the ground, causing another cloud that Neji ran into.

---------------------------

"When did Naruto get that good?!" Kiba exclaimed in shock.

"It is very different from his days in the academy." Shino commented.

"He is on the same team as Suki and Sasuke." Choji said.

"Don't forget one other thing," Someone spoke, revealing it to be Kakashi. "He and Sasuke have declared each other rivals. Since Sasuke seemed to be just a bit more skilled after Graduation, Naruto has pushed himself as hard as he could. This is the result of his training and unwavering determination."

--------------------------

"You're within my range." Neji spoke before quickly striking Naruto all over his body. "8 Trigrams: 64 Palms!"

That caused Naruto to fly backwards before falling onto the ground.

Neji breathed in a lot.

He then saw something flash from underneath Naruto.

Only to barely see a palm in front of his face.

"Great Wind Palm!"

Neji's world went dark.

-------------------------

Naruto was taking deep breaths as well.

He had been hiding in the hole that he had made earlier before replacing himself with a single clone, making it much more durable.

He waited for the perfect moment before he shot out of the hole and finished the fight.

"Winner of the first round between Naruto Uzumaki and Neji Hyuuga is Naruto Uzumaki!" The announcer exclaimed.

Suddenly, the stadium erupted into cheers that brought a smile to his face.

'That's one down,' Naruto then glanced at Suki and Sasuke, both with smirks that practically told him that they didn't expect anything else. 'Two more to defeat.'

------------------------------

"The next match is between Ino Yamanaka against Kankuro of Sunagakure!"

"I forfeit." Kankuro declared, shocking most people and causing the crowd to boo.

"Winner by forfeit is Ino Yamanaka!"

He waited a few seconds before continuing.

"The next match is between Dosu Kinuta against Sasuke Uchiha!"

---------------------------------

Short chapter this week. Last week was a bit hectic so I couldn't write as much.