Naruto - Part 6

Naruto was sitting on his father's stone head, just taking in the view and thinking. The past two months had been good to him, he had learned a lot and felt that he had made good progress. He felt a bit bad about lying to Kurenai about those Fuinjutsu books, but it's not like he was intending to use that knowledge for anything particularly bad.

The red eyed Jounin had surprised him when she had told him of her romantic interest. He had honestly not been expecting the somewhat aloof woman to develop that kind of interest in him. Beautiful though she was, he had no intention of getting involved in any serious relationships, at least not with anyone aside from Xanna.

He wasn't quite sure how to classify his relationship with the demoness, but she had been around more often than usual these past two months, which made him happy. She was difficult to read, but Naruto hoped he wasn't wrong in thinking that he was getting through to her. An ancient demoness she might be, but there was only so long that she could keep her distance and despite what she might say, he was certain that power wasn't the only thing that she cared about.

His thoughts were interrupted when he sensed the arrival of the very demoness that had been on his mind.

"Have you come to enjoy the view with me?"

"Actually I came to warn you, but watching the sunset with you does sound pleasant." She said and settled herself between his legs and leaned back on his chest.

"Warn me? This must be quite important if you felt I needed warning." Naruto answered in surprise.

"It is, I have sensed the arrival of my weakest brother, Shukaku." Xanna stated directly.

"The Ichibi? Is he sealed?" Naruto asked thoughtfully.

"Shukaku has been sealed inside something or other for centuries. The bloodthirsty lunatic doesn't have the wits to regain his freedom." The demoness spoke scornfully.

"You mean he's not like you at all?" The blond asked in surprise, having expected all of the Bijuu to be more or less similar to Xanna, if less powerful.

"There is no one like me." She said evenly, but Naruto thought that he could detect a hint of an old bitterness in her tone.

Naruto carefully considered how to approach this subject. He really wanted to know what this was about, but he didn't want her to clam up.

"You know...I've been told that I give a good massage, but I'd like your opinion on my tehnique. We can talk some more about this while I'm working you over." He offered.

Xanna sent him an amused look before agreeing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The two of them were now in Naruto's apartment, with Xanna lying face down on the bed, completely naked.

Naruto, also naked, was preparing to begin the massage as he straddled her hips. He kneaded her shoulders and began to swirl his chakra chaoticaly, so that it would push into the muscles and loosen them.

Xanna purred her enjoyment of his efforts and began to speak.

"For you to truly understand the difference between me and the other 8 Bijuu, I need to start at the very beginning." She began "Several thousand years ago, there were no Bijuu, no shinobi, not even chakra."

Naruto was quite shocked by this, as he had thought that chakra had always existed, but didn't interrupt.

"The only thing of notable mystical power was the Shinju, the god tree."

"What was the Shinju? And what about the people of that time?" Naruto asked, intensely curious.

"The Shinju was the last remnant of divine power in this world. From what I understand, the gods have long since left this world, leaving behind only the Shinju. The only one who remains is the death god and he is but a faded specter of what he once was, though even diminished as he is, he remains the most powerful entity known to this world." She explained.

Naruto was so caught up in the story that he forgot to keep massaging for a moment, but a shake of her shoulders reminded him.

"As for the people...well, they were much the same as they are now, except for the fact that they lacked chakra. This was a good thing in my opinion as they were capable of doing less damage that way."

"I guess that means that they were constantly warring with each other." Naruto guessed.

"Exactly so. This went on for a long time, with the Shinju being revered but mostly ignored, until a princess by the name of Kaguya saw that the god tree had borne fruit. She had good intentions, thinking that if she ate a fruit from the Shinju, that she would be granted powers that she could use to stop the constant war."

"So what went wrong?"

"While the eating the fruit did indeed grant her great power, she was naive in her thinking that humanity was going to stop warring with itself just because she was more powerful than them. She may have eventualy brought them all down, but her peace would have been forced and only lasted for a few decades at the most."

"I'm getting the feeling that something else went wrong." Naruto said, moving his hands further down her back.

Xanna hummed in agreement and continued with her tale.

"She was pregnant when she ate the fruit and the power that was granted to her, was only further concentrated inside of her unborn son. The child was different from the very beginning. He posessed eyes which frightened all who looked into them, glowing purple orbs with no pupil or sclera and a ripple pattern. It came to be known as the Rinnegan. It was a manifestation of divine power and it granted abilities that mortals were never meant to have."

Naruto moved his hands to her lower back as he spoke. "What happened after that?"

"Kaguya named her son Hagoromo and attempted to live out a normal life, but it was not to be. Hagoromo grew far faster than he should have and rapidly began to display powers that dwarfed even those of his mother. Kaguya got her wish about ending the war between the separate factions of humanity when the Shinju began to move."

"Move? Wasn't it just a tree? A divine tree yeah, but still a tree." Naruto asked in surprise.

"Everyone was as shocked as you, as the Shinju had not moved for as long as anyone had known of it. But apparently it had sensed the theft of it's fruit or the fact that Hagoromo had gained access to divine power and began to reshape itself. What was once a tree, became an immense ten tailed demon god."

"Ten tailed?!" The blond burst out in shock.

"Yes, it was the very first tailed beast, a divine entity that had turned demonic in it's rage. It rampaged across the land, destroying everything in it's path until Hagoromo went to challenge it."

Naruto moved his hands to her butt cheeks and began to rub them vigourously, which made her purr again before continuing.

"You must understand that the power of the Shinju had no limit and yet Hagoromo, who had taken to calling himself the Sage of Six Paths by then, was able to challenge it. The man was an aberration that should never have existed, a human with divine power, a mortal god. Their battle raged for days, both had access to limitless power, both were able to draw power from their surroundings to replenish themselves. The only true difference between them was that the Shinju was a rampaging beast and the Sage was a man capable of making complex plans, which is why he won."

"How did he manage to do that if they were both unable to ever truly run out of juice." Naruto asked curiously.

"He saw that every time he blasted away a piece of the demon's flesh, it would spawn lesser demons, which fled from the battle and went to seek human victims. In a desperate gamble, he used Fuinjutsu to seal the beast inside of himself."

Naruto had moved down to her legs by this point. "Shouldn't that have killed him? From what I know, I would have died if I had been any older when dad tried to seal you into me." He commented.

"Anyone else would indeed have died, but due to the vastness of his own power and the Rinnegan, he had no trouble sealing it at all. Anyway, now that the ten tails was taken care of, Hagoromo was left with the problem of the many lesser demons that had scattered to the winds. He went to hunt them immediately, but for all of his power he could only be in one place at a time. The demons preyed on the weak humans of the time, many of them developing a taste for the women."

Naruto's face twisted in disgust hearing that and it was hard to keep from clenching his hands painfully around Xanna's legs.

"While the Sage hunted the demons, many of the assaulted women became pregnant from this and bore offspring. Contrary to what the Sage had feared, the children were perfectly human, though they were surprisingly capable of using chakra just like him, though on a much smaller scale. Some of them even displayed distinctive abilities that would later become known as bloodlines."

"So you're telling me that chakra and bloodlines are the result of women getting raped by demons?" Naruto asked with a scowl. Even if it was long since over, he didn't like hearing about something like that.

"Not entirely. The Sage sired children of his own and was able to awaken the ability to use chakra in humans with some effort. He traveled the world, preaching about peace and spreading the teachings of chakra throughout the elemental nations."

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it didn't work out the way he wanted to." Naruto said dryly.

"Everything seemed to be going well. The land had settled into peace and Hagoromo was able to spend more time with his sons , but he eventualy grew old and began dying. He knew that once he died that the creature he kept imprisoned within himself would be free again and this time there would be no one to stop it. Which is why he used his powers to split it into 9 pieces."

"You and the other Bijuu." Naruto realised.

"Yes. He had little time left in the world by then and he told us of our origins and asked that we provide guidance and counsel to the humans, so that the peace could last. Of me he asked that I look after his descendants and make sure that they do not abuse the powers that were granted to them."

"Who were his descendants." Naruto asked curiously.

"The Senju and the Uchiha, though they were not known as such at the time. The Uzumaki splintered away from the Senju a long time ago and the Hyuuga splintered from the Uchiha even longer ago." She explained, leaving the blond badly shocked.

"It was less than two generations after the old Sage died that things started going wrong. Humans began using chakra as a weapon of war, the Uchiha heiress at the time, who was Hagoromo's granddaughter was assaulted by one of the few remaining demons and the powerful spiritual chakra she had inherited became corrupted, leading to the creation of the Sharingan."

"So the Sharingan is a demonic bloodline?" Naruto asked once he'd gotten over his shock.

"Yes. It's wielders are naturally predisposed towards the darker emotions due to this, as the Doujutsu feeds off them. When I told you so many years ago that I had sensed great amounts of human malice in Konoha, it was mostly from the Uchiha. It feels odd to know that the descendants that I was asked to watch after have all but wiped themselves out or been wiped out." Xanna mused idly.

Naruto was by now struggling to keep all of this in mind so he asked another question that had caught his interest. "So, what did you mean when you said that there is no one like you?"

Xanna sighed and answered. "Because the Sage screwed up. The way that he made us ensured that I was the strongest by far, posessing more than half of the strength that the ten tails had, because he placed the most faith in me. Hagoromo, despite all of his power, was still a human and he didn't truly understand what it meant that the Shinju had become demonic. The other 8 Bijuu were unstable because they lacked the power to sustain their minds and all of them eventualy went feral, only regaining some of their sense when they are sealed inside of humans and borrowing their sense of identity. This was only worsened as humans began attempting to use them as weapons, which incited their rage. The world once again descended into war and I abandoned the elemental nations altogether for many centuries, I even left behind the name that the Sage had given me, as it was connected to the task he wished for me to do."

"Is that why your name sounds so foreign?" Naruto wondered, moving his hands up to her upper back again.

"Good guess. Yes, I chose this name from another land and before you ask, yes there are several other continents on this world. I was not known there and I bided my time instead of watching my siblings go mad and watching you humans using a spark of divine power to kill each other."

"Spark of divine power? Chakra?"

"Of course. You know of the Nidaime Hokage and his ressurection tehnique, did you think that it is normal to rip a soul out of the pure world and force it into an undead body? I'm sure there are several other examples of humans using chakra to violate the natural order."

"Does that mean that you could do something like that as well?" Naruto asked curiously.

"No, while I am capable of many things, reaching into the afterlife is barred to me. I was created from a corrupt and demonic power. This makes my own chakra naturally destructive, but it also prevents me from using many of the abilities that humans are able to. With age I have managed to subdue the worst of the rage I inherited from the ten tails, but it is always there. Had we met when I was younger, I would have killed you for the slightest irritation."

"Well I'm glad I met you in your old age then." Naruto joked.

A dusky skinned foot lashed upwards to smack him in the back, knocking him off balance and making him fall on top of her.

"Enough stories, you have one other place to massage." Xanna whispered suggestively.

"It will be my pleasure." Naruto whispered back into her ear as he slipped inside her.

Hours later, when they were both spent and just laying together in bed, Xanna spoke again.

"As I have said, be wary of whoever contains Shukaku. He is the most unstable among us and is likely to have driven his host insane with his bloodthirsty raving."

"Is there any way for me to identify him?" Naruto asked.

"He has powers over sand, so his container is likely to have similar powers. Last that I saw of him, he was rampaging in the deserts to the west, so he has no doubt been sealed by the Hidden Sand."

Naruto's smile was hidden by the darkness. Now he knew for certain that he was making progress in carving out a place for himself in her heart. She wouldn't have warned him if she was still just testing him to see if he was worth her attention.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto was looking at Lee getting his ass kicked with some confusion. They had just entered the academy building where the first phase of the Chunin exam was supposed to take place and were immediately forced to plow through a crowd. Fortunately Naruto's size had allowed him to more or less bulldoze through the crowd.

Seeing Lee get pushed around by a couple of Chunin as if he was a wimp was an odd sight, especialy since they were doing it in front of room 201. For the life of him, Naruto couldn't figure out why everyone was trying to get into that room since the exam was supposed to be in room 301.

"If you can't even get passed us, then you might as well go home." One of the the Chunin said disdainfully.

"Real nice speech, now reverse the Genjutsu and let us through. I'm sure Sakura noticed it a mile away." Sasuke said, walking towards the the Chunin with his hands shoved into his pockets.

Genjutsu?

Naruto could have smacked himself when he realised that he was doing his Genjutsu immunity thing and hadn't even noticed. He had taken to keeping up the chakra condensing as much as possible for as long as possible in an effort to see if he could make it second nature and had gotten blindsided by his own ability.

I got confused by reality instead of a Genjutsu, oh the irony.

"So you noticed the illusion did you? Lets see you deal with this!" The Chunin with the bandage across his nose said and flew into a kick.

Sasuke reacted with a kick of his own, but before anything could connect, Lee caught both of their feet in one hand each.

"Finally done pretending to be a wimp Lee?" Naruto asked his sparring partner.

"Naruto, I am glad to see that you are participating in this most youthful exam!" Lee responded enthusiasticaly.

"You know this guy?" Sasuke asked, wanting to know more about the weird guy that was strong enough to block his kick so easily.

"We spar together when both of us have time." Naruto answered.

While this short conversation had been going on, Lee had stepped in front of Sakura and began talking with a small blush on his face.

"You are Sakura yes? My name is Rock Lee, please be my girlfriend, I vow to protect you with my life!" Lee said with a thumbs up, his teeth pinging.

Sakura was looking a bit ill at the thought of it. "Definitely...not."

"But why?" lee asked, appearing quite heartbroken.

"Because you're a weirdo."

This sent Lee into a depressive slump for a short while and Naruto found the whole thing hilarious. Though he was wondering just what the hell Lee saw in Sakura.

The short pissing contest between the Sasuke and Neji was equaly funny, mostly because both of them thought they were so badass.

Unknown to everyone Sasuke was struggling with a serious case of insecurity around his towering blond teammate and was trying to compensate by appearing as competent as possible.

Naruto had shown himself to be a more powerful shinobi on just about every occassion so far, which was a direct contradiction to his previous status as a dead last. He had bought some affinity paper as soon as they got back to the village and he had been pleased to find that he had a lightning affinity along with fire. Sasuke had spent the last two months learning several new tehniques and polishing his Taijutsu in the hope that he could close the distance between himself and Naruto and reclaim his position as the stronger of the two. After all, if he couldn't even measure up to his teammate, then how was he ever going to beat Itachi?

Sakura urged them to just hand in their registrations before they ran out of time. She did this mostly to prevent a fight breaking out and to get away from Lee's eyebrows.

They didn't make it very far before Lee caught up to them with a challenge for Sasuke. Apparently Lee wanted to test himself against a genius, intent on proving that hard work was better than talent.

"There's no point in fighting him Lee, he wouldn't be any challenge for you." Naruto told the spandex wearing genin, leaning on the wall in a bored manner.

Sasuke started grinding his teeth in anger at being dismissed so easily by his teammate.

"But Naruto, I wish to fight him anyway, just to see how far my hard work has brought me in comparison to a genius." Lee insisted.

"Enough! I'll fight this freak." Sasuke burst out angrily.

Sakura looked on nervously. She had faith in Sasuke's strength, but it had been proven repeatedly that Naruto was stronger and the blond had said that Lee was his sparring partner.

The following beat down was highly amusing for Naruto, as Sasuke was completely unable to keep up with Lee's speed and even more hilarious was the fact that he hadn't even taken his weights off. He was actualy pretty disappointed when Gai-sensei and his summoned turtle showed up. Well, watching Sakura and Sasuke freaking out during their first exposure to the sunset Genjutsu was pretty funny too.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"You guys really need to calm down, you're attracting too much attention." Spoke a silver haired Genin.

All 3 rookie teams had just gathered together at the entrance of room 301 and had been creating quite a ruckus when this silver haired newcomer had intruded on the reunion.

"Who the hell are you?" Came the rude question from Ino.

"I'm Yakushi Kabuto and I just came to warn you that you're making targets of yourself, but I guess you can't help not knowing how things work in the Chunin exam, since you're rookies." Kabuto said good naturedly.

"So this isn't your first time taking this exam?" Sakura asked.

"No, actually this is my seventh time." Kabuto replied with some embarrassment.

"So does that mean that you're something of an expert on the Chunin exam?" Sakura asked, hoping to get some useful information out of the silver haired teenager.

"You could say that."

"Some expert, if he's failed seven times." Shikamaru grumbled.

"Well, I haven't been completely wasting my time, since I've collected quite a lot of information on my nin-info cards." Kabuto countered.

"Nin-info cards? What kind of information do you have?" Sakura asked.

"All sorts of things, such as which countires are participating and how many genin they sent." Kabuto said and activated the first card in his stack to demonstrate. "This year we have some pretty stiff competition. Konoha has the most teams in the exam, followed by Suna, Taki, Kusa, Ame and finally just the one team from Oto. It's not surprising that Otogakure sent only one team since they're a new hidden village."

"Do you have any information on individuals?" Sasuke asked, suddenly interested.

"Why yes, I do. If you tell me something about whoever you're interested in, then I can see if I have anything on them." Kabuto confirmed.

"Rock Lee of Konoha, Sabaku no Gaara of Suna and Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha." Sasuke stated.

"Trying to see if this guy is gonna know anything about me that you don't know already princess?" Naruto mocked.

"Stop calling me princess you asshole." Sasuke scowled.

"I'll stop calling you a princess when you stop pouting like one." Naruto retorted with a grin pulling at his lips.

"Don't insult Sasuke-kun like that dead last!" Ino yelled, making Sakura suddenly fear for her rival.

"You're lucky that we're in the middle of an exam, but if you call me dead last again I'm going to plant your head into a wall." Naruto coldly told the Yamanaka with his teeth bared.

Ino was about to throw another insult at him, but Shikamaru quickly stopped her. The lazy Nara had seen that Naruto was being dead serious and seeing as the older Genin was not wearing anything to conceal the powerful muscle on his body, he could easily believe that he was capable of it.

"Alright, I've got the cards you asked for." Kabuto said, calling attention to himself again.

"Rock Lee graduated the year before you, his teammates are Tenten and Hyuuga Neji, team leader is Maito Gai. He has completed 45 D-ranks and 23 C-ranks. His performance in the academy was pretty terrible, tied for dead last actualy, but he's become very capable in the past year. His skill with Taijutsu is very high, but he doesn't know anything at all about Ninjutsu or Genjutsu."

"Next up, Sabaku no Gaara. Since he'd not from Konoha I don't know much about his skills, but I do know that his teammates are his older siblings Temari and Kankuro and their team leader is Baki. I don't know this for sure, but his team has supposedly been on a B-rank mission already and that he has returned from every mission without so much as a scratch."

Everyone was quite surprised to hear this, as Genin weren't supposed to be given B-rank missions and for a Genin to never get even scratched was remarkable.

"Have you been trolling for trouble with Suna Sasuke?" Naruto asked curiously, wondering why he'd want to know about this particular Genin.

"We ran into him the other day and he seemed pretty strong." Sakura informed.

"Alright, lastly, Uzumaki Naruto. Was the dead last in the academy for 4 years running, graduated the academy on his fifth try. He seemed to be a lost cause as a shinobi, but has been doing well for himself since he graduated. Not much is known about his abilities, but he presumably has high skill with Taijutsu as he was seen training with Rock Lee. Teammates are Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura, team leader is Hatake Kakashi the Copy Ninja. He has completed 30 D-ranks, 4 C-ranks and amazingly 1 A-rank."

This shocked everyone except for Team 7.

"How the hell did you guys get assigned an A-ranked mission?!" Kiba asked in shock.

"We didn't, the client lied about the ranking, it was supposed to be a C-rank." Naruto explained shortly.

"There have also been..ah...rumours about Uzumaki-san." Kabuto said in an embarassed manner.

"Rumours?" Ino asked. She always liked to hear rumours.

Sakura and Sasuke suddenly looked very uncomfortable and wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. Sasuke was already regretting asking about his blond teammate, as he hadn't learned anything new and now it looked like Team 7's most embarrasing secret was about to be revealed. Well, embarrasing for Sakura and Sasuke at least.

"Apparently, Uzumaki-san has something of a reputation for sleeping with female clients on missions. In fact most of his D-ranks seem to consist of poorly hidden excuses for female clients to sleep with him."

The assembled Genin had their jaws hanging in disbelief, but one look at the embarrased Sasuke and Sakura confirmed it. Hinata was blushing furiously, with Ino only slightly less.

"What the hell man?! You mean while we've been chasing cats, painting fences and picking up garbage, Naruto has been having sex all over the place AND GETTING PAID FOR IT?!" Kiba burst out in a fit of jealous rage.

"Sounds about right." Naruto said with a grin.

"What the hell is so special about you that so many women would want to sleep with you anyway?!" Kiba continued ranting, still consumed with jealousy.

"To name just a few things: I'm an adult, blond, badass whose body doesn't look like a wet noodle, I don't smell like dog all the time and my dick is the size of your forearm." Naruto stated in a deadpan voice completely without shame.

Hinata's brain was cooking by this point, with Ino and Sakura not far behind, even the guys weren't able to contain their blushes at the blunt declaration.

"Oh yeah?! I ain't buying that for a second, so don't go making declarations like that unless you're willing to whip it out and prove it." Kiba raved, trying to somehow come out on top in this discussion despite his blushing face.

Wordlessly, Naruto's hands went to his pants and started taking them off, making Hinata pass out and everyone else achieved Hinata level blushes, heating the room up considerably. Before he could take the pants off though, Sakura got her wits together and started yelling at her blond teammate.

"Damnit Naruto, keep it in your pants! Don't you have any shame!?"

Naruto stopped trying to remove his pants and looked thoughtful for a second.

"Not really no."

"Quiet down you punks!" Came the voice of the scar faced man who was presumably in charge of the first phase of the exam.

At this point the team of Sound Genin realised that they had been so caught up in watching the spectacle that the Konoha rookies were putting on that they had missed their chance to take a swing at Kabuto.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Our youthful students should be taking the first part of the exam by now!" Gai said with enthusiasm.

"Huh? You say something Gai?" Kakashi responded dully.

"Gah! Curse you and your cool, hip ways Kakashi. At least your student Naruto is more youthful than you." The green beast said back.

Asuma and Kurenai just looked at this familiar scene with amusement.

The four Jounin were lounging around, waiting for their respective Genin to finish the first test.

"How about we make a little friendly wager?" Asuma asked, interupting Gai's ranting, making the other three Jounin look at him with interest.

"What kind of wager?" Kurenai asked curiously.

"A wager about which of our Genin teams will do the best in the exam." Asuma explained with a grin.

"A most youthful idea, I wager 500 ryo on my students." Gai eagerly agreed.

"I'll join in on that. 500 ryo on my team...well Naruto and Sasuke at least." Kakashi said lazily. Sakura had been improving lately, but she had been so far behind that if the other two weren't so strong, he would never have considered letting them participate in the exam.

"As expected from my eternal rival!"

"I'll put 500 ryo on my team, though I think only Shikamaru is going to make it to the finals." Asuma joined in with a bet of his own.

There was silence for a while before Asuma spoke up again. "Aren't you going to bet on your team Kurenai."

"I'd love to say that my team is going to do the best, but I can't honestly convince myself that they have any chance of beating Naruto." Kurenai said with a sigh.

"Wasn't he the dead last for several years now? Why wouldn't your team be able to beat him." Asuma asked scepticaly.

Kakashi eye smiled, feeling very proud of his student. "Naruto is the type of guy that always has some surprises in store."

"Indeed, he has been a most youthful sparring partner for Lee." Gai agreed with a cheesy smile.

"If it was just that I would still bet on my team, but the problem is that he beat me in a spar." Kurenai revealed with resignation.

Asuma stared at her with a slack jawed expression. "How the hell did a Genin, a fresh one at that, beat you?" The eternal rivals also leaned in with interest.

"He came to me because he needed a Genjutsu specialist to help him with a Fuinjutsu project he has going on and asked me to teach him how to dispel Genjutsu. While I was teaching him this, he somehow managed to condense his chakra to the point that he became completely immune to Genjutsu. Since illusions were useless, I had to fight him with only Taijutsu and Ninjutsu and he was just too strong and too fast, I couldn't keep up. The worst part is that I think he could have used Fuinjutsu to end it even faster." The red eyed Jounin explained to them.

"Immune to Genjutsu? How the hell did he manage that?" Asuma asked in shock.

"I've discussed this with him and we've theorised that if a normal persons' chakra flows like water, his is more like thick mud. When he's actively condensing it it's more like wet concrete, meaning that it's just so dense that the chakra from the Genjutsu I try to cast on him can't flow properly, making him immune."

"But with that kind of chakra, how can he even use Ninjutsu?" The chain smoking Jounin asked in wonder.

"He can't really, at least not regular Ninjutsu. The only Ninjutsu that he can use are specialised ones like shadow clones and ones that he creates himself that only someone with chakra like his can use." Kakashi explained.

"The way you said that just now makes me think that he might actualy know some Ninjutsu besides the shadow clone." Kurenai asked with narrowed eyes, wondering if the blond had actually been holding back during their spar.

Kakashi just eye smiled at the female Jounin, but didn't answer.

"Well, I'll bet 500 ryo anyway. I'd feel like a terrible teacher if I didn't have any faith in my team. I'm pretty sure that at least one of them will make it to the finals at least."

XXXXXXXXXX

Naruto stared at the questions on the written test in front of him. He couldn't even begin to understand a single damn one. If I knew this was going to be a written test I wouldn't have bothered to take off the resistance seals.

After the scarred man had introduced himself as Morino Ibiki, the proctor of the first phase of the exam, he had told them the rules for this test and left them to sweat over the ridiculously hard questions.

Naruto had been suspicious ever since he had heard that getting caught cheating would only cost them two points and now seeing the too hard test only solidified that impression.

We have to cheat.

Now the problem was how exactly he could cheat. He had no bloodlines that he could use to gather information and he didn't have any other tricks he could use either.

Getting caught cheating will result in a loss of two points.

As long as he only got caught cheating once, then it didn't matter how obvious he was, as long as he got all the answers in one try.

The blond scoped out the other Genin to see who seemed to be filling out the test with the most competence. Several people appeared to have caught on already and were busily writing answers onto their tests.

Who are they copying it from?

Naruto condensed his chakra and suddenly several of the 'Genin' looked older. Disguised Chunin, no doubt planted so that there was someone to cheat off of.

Naruto smirked to himself, planted his feet on the table and decided to take a short nap. He would wait for the planted Chunin to fill out the test and then make his move. He never noticed Hinata next to him looking over at him with curiosity. She would have been worried, but the big blond looked so utterly unconcerned that she could only deduce that he had a plan.

At the front of the classroom, Ibiki looked over at the blond as well. He had no idea what Uzumaki was playing at, but he looked cooler than an iceberg, all the stress that the others were under not even touching him.

At the 40 minute mark, Naruto's eyes opened and he stood up, catching the attention of everyone that saw him. Ibiki didn't say anything as the blond began moving towards one of the planted Chunin. The Chunin himself hadn't seen the blond move as Naruto had been sitting behind him.

A fist thundered into the Chunin without warning, knocking him out immediately. Naruto calmly took the test back to his seat, erased the name and replaced it with his own, leaving the entire room gaping at him.

"Not very subtle of you Uzumaki." Ibiki commented dryly.

"It's a good thing that I don't need to be subtle then, as long as I only do it once." Naruto countered.

"True enough." Ibiki agreed. "Just in case anyone has any ideas about repeating that stunt however, the next person to try that fails the test."

"Why the hell does he get away with it and we can't?!" A Genin in his late twenties burst out angrily.

"Because he had the stones to come up with it himself instead of just copying what someone else did. Now no more questions!" Ibiki barked.

Naruto went back to relaxing for the last few minutes before the time came for the final question.

"There's a special rule for the tenth question." Ibiki spoke omnimously.

"Special rule?" Someone asked.

"You must choose whether to take the question or not."

"What happens if we don't take it?" Temari asked.

"Then you and your team immediately fail the test." Ibiki answered with a smirk

"What kind of stupid rule is that?! Of course we're gonna take the question then." Came the grumbles from the gathered Genin.

"The reason for the rule is, because if you get the question wrong, then you will never be allowed to participate in the Chunin exam again." The scarred proctor said with finality.

"That's bullshit, there are people here who have taken the exam before." Kiba burst out.

"Well then you're just unlucky, because this time I make the rules." Ibiki said with a sinister chuckle. "Now choose, those of you who don't want to take the question, raise your hands."

After several tense minutes, someone broke and raised his hand, apologising to his teammates. This started a flood of people raising their hands and giving up.

Naruto kept his feet on the desk the entire time, completely unconcerned. He very much doubted that Ibiki had the authority to prevent Genin from ever again participating in the Chunin exam and even if he did by some miracle have that authority, Naruto didn't care what rank he was. He had already gotten access to all the Fuinjutsu knowledge that was open to the village and the rest of the things in the Chunin and Jounin sections of the library were more than likely of no interest to him, as he couldn't make use of most of it, due to his special situation with chakra.

It would in fact possibly be in his best interest to stay a Genin. That way he could keep gaining power without being bogged down by extra responsibility.

Ibiki looked over at the blond Uzumaki lounging with his feet propped on the desk with absolutely no concern. His unbreakable calm was bolstering the courage of those around him and keeping them from giving up.

"What about you Uzumaki? You won't be able to punch someone to get the answer to the last question."

Naruto opened his eyes and met the dark gaze of the scarred proctor.

"Then I'll kick someone instead."

Ibiki couldn't help but chuckle at the answer. "It's not gonna be that easy. Are you really going to risk staying a Genin for the rest of your career as a shinobi on the off chance that you can get around the rules like that again."

"I really don't give a damn what rank I am, so this attempt to scare me is pretty pointless. Besides, I don't believe for a second that you have the authority to keep someone a Genin forever, especialy those who aren't even from Konoha. " Naruto replied airily.

Ibiki resisted the urge to frown. His attempt to psyche up the blond had backfired on him. Instead of making more people quit, it seemed that the Uzumaki's calm attitude had settled the nerves of the whole room.

I guess there's no use dragging it out any further then.

"Very well then. Everyone in this room...passes the first phase of the exam."

The expected pandemonium broke out, with indignant people demanding to know if the previous 9 questions were all pointless then. Everyone calmed down once they heard the explanation about how Chunin often had to make decisions without proper information and that those who didn't have the courage to even risk their rank wouldn't have the courage to risk their lives.

Ibiki had just covered up his extensively scarred head and given a short lecture on the importance of information when a black blur smashed through a window. The blur turned out to be a kunoichi wrapped in a banner, which she pinned to the wall with kunai by way of introduction and posed in front of it.

'Proctor of the second exam, the sexy and single Mitarashi Anko!' was written boldly on the banner, with the woman in question standing in front of it.

Anko certainly had an interesting fashion sense, dressed as she was in a tan overcoat that barely concealed her mesh armour covered breasts. The mesh extended to just above her knees. Her light purple hair was styled into a spiky pony tail and an orange mini skirt sat on her hips. Her feet were covered by black shinobi sandals and light grey shin guards. All in all, she was a very interesting woman to be sure.

Most of the Genin were gawking at her stupidly, still stunned by the spectacular entrance and several were staring due to her barely covered assets.

Naruto gave her a wolf whistle, making her look at him. A groan was heard from Sakura, but it was ignored.

"I give you a 9 out of 10 for the entrance. You get extra points for crashing through the window but your timing was off and your pose could use work." The blond commented with the air of a judge at a formal competition.

Anko had been intending to make a quick headcount and then get on Ibiki's case about being too soft...even if there had only been a few Genin left, but the muscly blond had quite successfully diverted attention to himself.

"And who exactly are you?...brat?" Anko asked with an infuriating smirk.

Naruto vanished from his seat and appeared in front of the newly arrived proctor in a burst of speed.

"Who are you calling a brat?...shorty." The blond said as he towered over the considerably smaller special Jounin. "And the name is Uzumaki Naruto."

Anko glared upwards at the taller shinobi, she hated being called short. She recognised the name though, this was the guy that Kurenai had been telling her about. Anko had been pretty surprised to hear that Kurenai had developed a romantic interest in anyone, let alone a Genin, but the red eyed Jounin had warned her not to take this one lightly and the speed with which he'd moved certainly gave credence to that.

The two of them continued glaring at each other for a tense few seconds until Naruto suddenly grinned his usualy sharp toothed grin.

"I like your style Anko." The blond said, deliberately using a familiar form of adress that most would consider incredibly rude to use with someone that they'd just met.

"Your style isn't so bad either Naruto." She replied with a grin of her own, irritation transformed into enjoyment. She never liked it when people were being overly polite when they talked to each other and it was refreshing to encounter someone who felt the same.

The fact that they liked each other's style may have something to do with the fact that it was the same style. They both wore open coats that left their chests bare. Granted, Anko wore a mesh shirt underneath, but it was just at the edge of indecent and Naruto was a man, so he could pull off the shirtless look somewhat easier.

A thought suddenly went through Anko's head.

What if Kurenai has the hots for me and transferred it to this guy because she's in denial about being a lesbian? He's like a male version of me!

"Kami damnit Naruto, we're in the middle of an exam, don't you think this is a bad time to be trying to get into another woman's panties?!" Came Sakura's desperate wail.

Both Naruto and Anko became aware of the fact that they had been utterly ignoring the rest of the room, most of which were gaping at them. The rookies from Konoha who hadn't had much exposure to Naruto since graduating from the academy were gaping at how brazen the blond was and suddenly felt a wave of pity for Sakura and Sasuke who had to deal with him all the time.

Ibiki was also looking rather annoyed at the two of them, but neither of them really cared. Anko frequently made certain to annoy Ibiki and Naruto wasn't the type to give a damn who he annoyed.

Naruto turned towards his pink haired teammate and looked at her with the air of someone who was about to reveal a great secret of existence.

"It's always a good time...to get into a hot woman's panties." He finished with a serene smile, sunlight pinging off his teeth in a manner eerily reminiscent of Maito Gai.

Rock Lee was reminded powerfully of his sensei and instinctively began to write down this pearl of wisdom in his ever present notebook, much to the horror of his teammates.

Several other people in the room were looking at the blond with tears streaming from their eyes and barely restraining sobs, looking as if they had just heard the voice of the prophet.

"But what if I'm not wearing any panties?" Anko asked with a wide grin, causing mass nose bleeds.

"Then I think that you just might be my third or fourth favorite woman in the world." Naruto answered with a similarly wide grin. He couldn't believe that he'd just found someone who was just as shameless as him.

"Third or fourth? You must know some interesting women blondie." The snake user commented, not at all offended at being third or fourth. Considering that they had met all of five minutes ago that was pretty damn high on the list.

"Oh they're definitely interesting all right." The blond said, thinking mostly of Xanna. Ayame was firmly in the number two position and Tsunami was still special to him, even though he vaguely hoped he never saw her again, for the sake of simplicity.

A loud and highly irritated throat clearing noise precluded any more banter.

"Weren't you going to tell them about the second part of the exam Anko?" Ibiki ground out through clenched teeth. It was just his luck that Anko had discovered a kindred spirit and he had to be there to see it.

"Oh right, meet me at training ground 44 tomorrow, ask your sensei for directions if you don't know where it is." The purplette said and jumped out the broken window.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

The gathered Genin were looking at the freakishly large forest that was marked as the 44th training ground with trepidation.

"Welcome to training ground 44, also called the Forest of Death." Anko said with relish, enjoying the scared looks that some of the Genin were sporting.

"This sure is a creepy place." Sakura said nervously.

"You will be able to experience why this place is called the Forest of Death." Anko continued with a smile.

Naruto scoffed at her, knowing that she was going to be annoyed by it and therefore provoked. He was right of course as a kunai whizzed at him. If left alone it would have cut his cheek open, but it was instead caught in his hand.

Anko suddenly appeared behind him with another kunai in her hand drifting towards his cheek.

"Tough guys like you tend to spill the most blood in there." She whispered hotly in his ear, cutting into his cheek with the kunai.

Only to be shocked when Naruto burst into smoke, revealing that it had been a shadow clone. The snake mistress suddenly found large hands grabbing her waist and a man's crotch grinding against her rear.

"Proctor-san, I have a medical condition that I need to tell you about." Naruto whispered in her ear, just as hotly as she had done mere seconds earlier.

"What is this medical condition of yours Genin?" Anko asked, playing along.

"Whenever a beautiful and bold woman throws deadly weapons at my head...I become incredibly aroused." Naruto explained his problem.

"Well that's some terrible luck you have Genin, because the second part of the exam will have many people throwing deadly weapons at your head and some of them are going to be women." Anko countered without sympathy.

"I'm not afraid of that, since most of the females in that forest are going to be too young for my taste, but there is this incredibly sexy proctor who's got my blood boiling and I'm having trouble restraining myself." Naruto growled suggestively, his hands wandering upwards.

Anko twisted out of his hold and slashed a thin line diagonally across his chest with the kunai she still had in her hand, from his abs up to his pectorals. The wound was long, but not very deep and didn't bleed much. Certainly not in any way debilitating, aside from a slight sting.

"We'll see about that if you do well in the exam Genin."

She was never going to tell anyone, but she had started feeling embarrassed. Because she could feel his erection growing against her rear and because of the suggestive tone in his words. The way that he'd been rubbing against her left no doubt as to what he'd have liked to do to her.

All the other Genin present had been observing this with blushes burning on their faces. The Konoha rookies in particular were the worst off as they had actualy sort of known Naruto and seeing the resigned irritation on the faces of Sakura and Sasuke couldn't help but feel another wave of pity for them. Clearly things like this weren't anything out of the ordinary and they couldn't imagine having to deal with someone like him all the time.

Other than their joint pity for Sakura and Sasuke there were several varying reactions among the rookies.

Kiba was jealous of Naruto's easy way with the ladies.

Shikamaru thought the whole thing was troublesome and it reaffirmed his opinion that blonds were the most troublesome.

Ino was soaking the whole thing up as if it was a soap opera.

Sakura and Sasuke were annoyed, irritated and resigned.

Chouji was eating his chips faster than normal in an effort to cope with his embarrassment.

Shino was uncharacteristicaly embarrased and trying to understand the logic of it.

Hinata took the lions share of the embarrassment, but she was also envious of both Anko and Naruto and of how confident they were.

As Anko explained that they needed to sign consent forms because people would be dying inside the forest, Hinata decided that she would try overcome her shyness and embarrassment and try to do something. It was for this reason that she approached the big blond holding a small jar of her homemade healing cream. She was relieved that he was standing alone under a tree, as she didn't think she'd be able to do this if there were other people around.

"Um, N-Naruto-san, I..I have s-some c-cr-cream that can help w-with your w-wo-wound." She managed to stutter out.

Naruto looked at the shy Hyuuga in front of him. She was all but trembling from the effort it had taken her to approach and make the offer and she looked for all the world like an adorable little girl with that blush on her face. If it had been Ino or Sakura he would have brushed them off, but he'd feel like he kicked a puppy if he did that to Hinata. Besides, out of all the girls in the academy, she was the only one who hadn't been trying to get the attention of one boy or another, which was more than could be said for all the others. The wound would close by itself within the next three or four minutes even without treatment, but he decided to humour the pale eyed girl, as it had clearly taken her a lot of guts to do this.

"Alright, but you've got to call me 'nii-san' from now on." Of course, he was still Naruto, so he couldn't just accept something and leave it at that.

Hinata flushed with embarrassment again, but she actualy liked that idea so this was all a plus for her. She nodded her head and held out the cream to him.

"Oh no, you're the medic here, so go ahead and apply the cream to the wound." The blond said, holding his coat open for her and sticking his chest out.

Hinata once again developed radioactive levels of embarrassment, but did her best to power through it. Scooping up a generous dollop of the cream, she brought it to his chest and started rubbing it accross the wound, face flaming the entire time.

"T-There y-you go, um...ni-nii-san." The Hyuuga girl managed to stutter out, but she was in truth happy about the way things had gone. She had managed to get through the whole embarrasing ordeal without passing out and Naruto had told her to call him 'nii-san'. She had grown to admire the blond for his boldness ever since that day when he had come to ask Kurenai-sensei to help him with Genjutsu and this sense of closeness to him was comforting. He was the only older male figure in her life at the moment that didn't treat her as if she was a worthless irritation, so the fact that he had demanded to be called big brother, whatever his reason for it, was actualy the best possible outcome as far as she was concerned.

Some distance away, Anko had nearly choked on her spit when she had heard the blond demand to be called big brother. She could already imagine that stuck up prick Hiashi having an aneurysm when he caught wind of this. Oh, it was going to be fun telling Kurenai about this little development.