"Would Naruto Uzumaki and Neji Hyuuga please enter the arena." Came the voice of the announcer, echoing through the stands. The Hyuuga genin moved for the stairs from the waiting area, Naruto simply vaulted the railing, spitting out a cloud to float on as he fell. He drifted down to hover about 15 feet from the ground, waiting for Neji to arrive.
Once the two were present at the center of the field the Referee began the match and leapt away. "Your progress in these exams is fated to end here Uzumaki." Neji called.
Naruto simply held up a hand, and hopped down from the cloud. Making a few hand seals he summoned both Royal Sisters. "Naruto? What is the occasion? Don't you think using both of us for this fight is a little bit... drastic?"
"Oh no, I didn't call you for that, I just figured you may want to watch the matches, there's probably room in the Hokage's box. I'd rather fight Neji alone anyways, it's not like he can win." Naruto said simply, and the two Alicorns nodded and took flight, enjoying the crowd's reaction as they circled the audience once, before landing next to the Third.
"I hope you don't mind we join you?" Celestia said, taking a seat on his right. Luna moved to sit between him and the Kazekage.
"Not at all, not at all. I take it you've been to these sorts of events before?" The Hokage replied, ignoring the wary look the Kazekage gave Princess Luna.
"We often hold flying competitions for Pegasi, and occasionally a magic tournament for unicorns." Celestia replied.
"Do your genin commonly waste chakra on summons to simply watch them fight?" The Kazekage remarked.
"Only the exceptional ones." The Hokage said.
"What do you mean I can't win?" Neji said, dropping into his family fighting stance.
"Just what it sounds like. You're a prodigy of a close range style, and nothing else." Naruto replied, casually hopping up onto his cloud and floating 30 feet above the ground.
"So what? You're just going to sit up there?" Neji asked.
"You're welcome to try and make me stop." Naruto replied, leaning back on his platform.
In the stands several spectators began to talk among themselves about the lack of action. "What's that idiot doing? He's supposed to be fighting isn't he?" Temari remarked, rather envious about the blonde's flying ability. Despite appearances she could only drift on wind currents.
"Troublesome, we could be here for a while. Right now he's proving a point. He can sit up there all day, and all Neji can do is throw kunai and shuriken till he runs out. Just one ability of his renders Neji as effective as an academy student." Shikamaru said, leaning on the railing.
"Uzumaki!" Neji yelled, having attempted several times to hit the drifting cloud with his throwing weapons.
"Hmm? Ready to give up yet?" Naruto called down.
"Come down here and face me! Where is the honor in this?" Neji was furious.
"Honor? That's a laugh, you put down your allies, give away their secrets to spite them, and force your teammates to betray friends, and you want to talk to me about honor? You aren't fit to be a Konoha ninja, just go home Neji." Naruto taunted, trying to get his opponent riled up. "Even if you won this fight, how would you deal with someone like Gaara? He can float around just like me, while trying to crush you with his sand."
"All you've proven is that we would reach a stalemate. I can't win while you're up there, but you can't win without coming down." Neji replied, seeing a flaw in his logic.
"Alright, since we've established you can't win, let's see if you can lose shall we?" Naruto said, dropping down from his cloud.
Neji quickly activated his byakugan, and flinched. "You leak chakra as Armor to reduce the force of impacts." Neji remarked. "It may blur my vision, but I've been training my whole life, I can close your points even without seeing them."
"Wow Neji, I think there's some foreign dignitaries in the audience that didn't hear you. You really can't keep a secret can you?" Naruto grumbled, as his opponent rushed him.
In a flurry of movement Neji was upon his opponent, raining down blows upon him, he finished up a combo with a open palm thrust to Naruto's chest. The orange boy didn't bother to dodge, merely standing still and letting it happen, anchoring his feet to the ground to avoid being pushed back by Neji's final thrust. "Didn't hurt." He deadpanned.
Neji glared, seeing the shell of chakra around him damaged but slowly repairing itself. "My turn!" Naruto called, suddenly surrounded by a dozen clones. They rushed Neji, working in close coordination to strike simultaneously leaving Neji unable to block all of their attacks, they landed about three good hits before the original Naurto was forced back.
"That's not good enough!" Neji taunted.
"I can do a hundred if you like." Naruto countered, instead getting distance and summoning Twilight. "Let me give you a demonstration on long range tactics instead. Twilight! Lazy Spinning Top!" He called, pulling several Shuriken out, which Twilight began to levitate. As the audience looked on in anticipation Naruto blew wind chakra over each one until they became like half-meter-wide rotating saw blades. With a mental command the little purple pony sent the projectiles careening towards Neji, who dodged wildly, trying and failing to knock them down with Kunai of his own.
"How are you holding up?" Naruto asked his friend, seeing Neji was distracted.
"Not bad, it isn't as hard as lifting an Ursa Minor and a water tank full of milk, but doing several things at once takes a lot of concentration. Five is all I can do right now without my control suffering." Twilight said, making a face in her focus. "We don't really have to hurt him though, right?"
"Right, we just have to prove to the audience that we can if we wanted to." Naruto confirmed.
"Enough!" Neji yelled, as the blades converged on him. "Kaiten!" He roared, spinning in place and letting out his chakra, creating a deadly spinning dome of blue. Twilight's attack paused, before closing in and testing the defense. Sure enough the first blade to touch the barrier grinded against it with a whine before collapsing under the strain.
"He does know we can just keep the blades poised to attack when the defense ends right?" Twilight remarked dryly. Naruto shrugged, and Twilight moved the blades away, letting Neji come out of the technique.
"This is my family's ultimate defense. It creates an impenetrable dome of chakra around me." Neji said smugly.
"It's garbage." Naruto countered, watching with satisfaction as rage reappeared on Neji's face. "It only covers yourself, you have to remain stationary and on the ground, and you waste chakra filling the space between you and the outside of the barrier. All you're doing spinning in place and dumping precious chakra into the environment."
"This I came up with when I was still in the academy, and it beats your technique in several ways." Naruto taunted, surrounding himself in a Twilight Bubble. As a demonstration he changed the size, allowing it to surround Twilight, and drawing it back in. He moved about with it on, rolling it like he was a hamster in a ball, he turned it off and activated it while moving, and again while jumping. "Seen enough?"
"My techniques are not inferior!" Neji yelled, causing Naruto to sigh.
"Twilight, hit him." He called, and the barrage of shuriken resumed, sure enough Neji found himself surrounded and went into a Kaiten. Naruto closed the gap immediately, put his hand out towards the sphere, and pushed out with his chakra. When Neji finished spinning, he found himself in a bubble of his own. "Here, since you don't believe me, how about you take it for a test drive?" With a bit of concentration he shrank the bubble until Neji was forced into a curled up position, then called up several clones. With a solid kick the clones began to play a game of soccer.
The play continued until Naruto decided Neji was good and dizzy, and gave the ball a solid boot towards the wall. "Going, Going, Gone!" He called, cancelling the technique at the last second, and watching Neji slam against the wall. Seeing his opponent down and hurting, Naruto dismissed his clones and approached.
"I'm not fated to lose here..." he groaned out.
"Why are you so hung up on fate?" Naruto questioned, seeing how obsessed the boy really was.
And so began a very long winded life story, about a young Hinata getting kidnapped, her father killing the kidnapper, and Neji's father paying the price to avoid war. Naruto quickly grew pissed at the explanation. "Seriously? That's why you're some fate obsessed ass?"
"My father could not escape his fate, he was killed because he was born a few minutes too late." Neji said.
"Your father was killed to prevent a war! He died protecting his brother, his family, and the whole damn village. He died preventing Kumo from taking your bloodline you ungrateful jerk. Fate had nothing to do with it, it was a matter of duty." Naruto responded.
"What do you know! Your fate is to fail today Naruto, to fail as a clanless orphaned loser!" Neji yelled, lunging forward at the off guard blonde boy. "You are within range of my divination! 2 palms! 4 palms! 8 palms! 16 palms! 32 palms! 64 palms!" he struck Naruto with a flurry of hits, even as Twilight tried to pull him away, with the last few strikes Naruto's Shining Armor began to crumble, and his chakra points began to close. "128 palms!" Neji yelled with the strain, arms moving at speeds invisible to an untrained eye, pushing Naruto back into the dirt. Attack finished, Neji felt an force take hold of him and toss him unceremoniously into the middle of the ring, he let it happen, sure of his victory.
"I've sealed your chakra points, you can no longer use your techniques. You can no longer escape to the sky. This victory is mine, totally and completely." Neji grunted, pushing himself up into a standing position.
From where he lay on the floor Naruto grunted out three words. "Discord. Juice me." Orange chakra filled his body with a surge, along with the sound of laughter echoing through his mind. Naruto regulated the flow, pushing it out to re-open his chakra points.
"You should have seen the look on your face when he interrupted your little rant. You do know you're supposed to win first, and lecture them on their shortcomings afterwards right? Still, letting him see his best attack fail has merits on its own." came a now familiar voice.
Naruto sat up with a grunt, shakily getting to his feet and shaking off the stinging sensation left over from the attack. "I told you Naruto, you're fated to lose here. You can no longer use chakra!" Neji called.
"Neji..." Naruto growled. "I changed the rules!" the arena became flooded with Naruto clones. With a nod to Twilight, Neji found himself flung skyward, as a hundred Naruto clones peppered him with air bullets, knocking the boy higher and higher. At the peak Neji found himself face to face with Naruto, standing on a cloud. "You look like you could use a hug!" He said with a grin, before leaping out to grab the Hyuuga in an embrace, and driving them both head first towards the ground.
"Uzumaki! Orbital! Friendship! Cannon!" He yelled, driving them into the ground. Twilight reacted on instinct, slowing the two of them down before Naruto could inflict any serious harm on his opponent, shaking her head at the recklessness the Kyuubi's chakra inspired in the blonde.
The dust cleared revealing a grinning Naruto and barely conscious Neji. "How? How do you so casually deny fate?"
"There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I'm going to change this world Neji, I'm going to change everything that tries to hold me back, fate be damned." Naruto said, as Neji passed out. The referee came over and declared him the winner, and Naruto found himself surprised by the roar of the crowd in his favor. Soon enough he found himself back in the waiting area for the contestants. Twilight had gone to the seating area with the other ponies.
"Not bad out there, think the judges will appreciate you playing with him?" Sasuke asked from the corner.
"I certainly hope so. How's work coming on your seal by the way." Naruto asked, leaning on the wall next to him.
"Alright, it's kind of hard to get it turned on though. Better that then the alternative I guess." Sasuke grunted.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you the activation phrase!" Naruto explained, getting him an odd look. "If you say it while drawing on its chakra it'll open easier. Luna came up with it."
"And what, pray tell, is the activation phrase?" Sasuke asked skeptically.
"Moon Princess Power." Naruto replied.
"I'm supposed to say Moon Princess Power, in combat, when I want a power boost?" Sasuke asked evenly.
"Yell it, you have to yell it so that it'll trigger the transformation sequence." Naruto said.
"You're full of it Uzumaki." Sasuke grunted, moving away.
"It could save your life!" Naruto called after him, before bursting into peals of laughter.
The next match was Shikamaru vs Temari, which lasted an exorbitant amount of time. Luna looked on excitedly as she saw Shikamaru's technique. "Are you familiar with shadow manipulation?" the Hokage asked, not knowing much about the sister's personal magic.
"It comes with being a sort of... patron of the night. Shadowmancy comes naturally to me, that child is gifted, but he uses only one small aspect of its power, why?" She said, watching the battle closely.
"That sort of manipulation has long been lost to ninja I'm afraid. What you see before you is the basis of what the Nara clan still practice." The Third responded. "Still, he is quite intelligent in his use of it. I heard my son mention he is a strategic genius."
The match eventually drew to a close, with Shikamaru catching his opponent in a convoluted checkmate, and then forcing a dual surrender. The audience applauded politely, mostly glad that the round was finally over.
The next match was supposed to be Shino vs Kankuro, but the puppeteer bowed out immediately. "He is indeed skilled, but knows he isn't ready to become a chuunin, he only proceeded with the preliminaries to eliminate some competition." The Kazekage explained, getting a weary nod from the Hokage. If Shino was perturbed at losing a shot of showing off, he didn't show it. The next round however.
"What do you mean you quit too!" Sakura yelled at Dosu. The bandaged sound ninja simply shrugged off her verbal assault.
"I fought you in the forest with everything I had, you know all my tricks, and I assume you have some way of countering it?" He grunted.
"Yeah, I picked up some ear plugs, but still..." Sakura grumbled. Sure she'd now be moving on, but the crowd didn't get a chance to see what she could do now.
"The next match will be Sasuke Uchiha vs Gaara." Came the announcement, and the two ninja stepped out into the arena.
"That is your son, yes?" Celestia asked, sensing something off about the redheaded boy.
"Yes, Gaara is quite the impressive ninja for his age, I'm excited to see how he'll compare to the last Uchiha." The Kazekage responded.
The match began with a roar from the cloud as Sasuke tossed a brace of kunai, each one intercepted by Gaara's automatic sand defense. As expected a wave of electrical energy did nothing to destabilize the wall of sand. Giving up on that tactic Sasuke drew his sword and dodged into close range.
Pouring on every ounce of speed he could draw upon Sasuke darted around the redhead. Striking away at every angle to keep the sand defense occupied. Spotting an opening he charged his sword with a hiss, and struck across the sand ninja's chest. There blade knocked Gaara backwards, creating a rough scraping noise as it dragged across his sand armor. Gaara was caught by a wave of sand, and quickly retaliated with another sent at Sasuke.
The last Uchiha darted backwards, deciding to step things up and try again. Focusing inwards he opened the first little bit of his seal, forcing a sliver on the moon to darken. In a rush of chakra and adrenaline he darted forward, catching Gaara with several more strikes before being forced away by a radial blast of sand and dust. The cloud coalesced into a ball of sand, completely encasing his opponent.
Sasuke approached it warily, and had to leap back when the wall closest to him spiked outwards. Deciding on the direct approach, he turned and ran up the coliseum wall, and prepared his latest technique. Along with speed this was what Kakashi had him working on all month, and it was now his strongest piercing technique. He sprinted down the wall, chidori in hand, sharingan spinning wildly, and slammed his arm right through the defense of his enemy. The piercing wail from inside sounded more akin to a wounded beast than an animal, and he retreated quickly, barely saving his arm from being crushed.
Elsewhere in the stadium a signal was given and a wide area genjutsu quickly put the audience to sleep. An explosion on the Hokage's box caught the attention of the ninja present, the Kazekage and his four guards leapt onto the roof, followed shortly by Sarutobi and Luna. "Go, sister, help the others, I shall aid the Third." She called, as a massive barrier sealed them off.
At the outskirts of the village the walls were rushed by a mixture of sand and sound ninja, several large snakes lead the charge, knocking at the walls. At the south wall, a white haired man stood with three massive toads, and stared down a three headed serpent.
In the stands the genin and their instructors sprung into action, fending off attacks from ninja hidden within the audience. Dosu had disappeared, and Kankuro and Temari had grabbed an injured Gaara and ran for the hills. Naruto noticed with some relief that all of the ponies had dispelled once the genjutsu knocked them out.
"Naruto! You Sakura and Sasuke go after Gaara, I'm certain he has a key role in this invasion." Kakashi shouted, as he and Gai fended off three ninja each.
The two present nodded and leapt into the arena to meet up with Sasuke, who already found himself fighting alongside the referee. Naruto pulled out the Kyuubi's chakra for the second time that day and called up the Ixion.
The ship took up half the length of the field, and caused many of those fighting to look down at it in amazement and curiosity, wondering what a ship would do lodged in a coliseum. Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo lay on the deck groggily waking up from the summoning. "Why is the cider gone?" Mumbled Sweetie Belle as team seven leapt onto the deck.
"Avast Captain Sweetie, the village be under attack by scallywags! Raise the sails, we must go to its defense!" Naruto shouted, causing the three to leap up to attention. "We need to go after Gaara, he's hurt and somehow involved in this."
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo quickly nodded and ran to their stations. "We'll need a crew!" Sweetie said, turning to the team. Naruto made to summon a team of clones, but was interrupted.
"Team Gai reporting for duty Captain Sweetie!" Came the boisterous voice of Lee from over the side of the ship. Tenten stood at his side, hand over her face.
"Team 8 reporting for duty Captain Sweetie!" Kiba called next, landing with his team at Lee's side with a grin on his face. It appeared to him that Naurto hadn't been lying when he mentioned the flying ship. Hinata stood by him, looking about nervously. Shino... was Shino.
"Troublesome... Team 10 reporting as well." Came the rather reluctant voice of Shikamaru. Chouji was next to him and smiling, and Ino just looked lost.
"Permission to come aboard!" Lee yelled enthusiastically.
"Permission granted!" Sweetie yelled. "Report to Apple Bloom for assignments, Helmsmare Scootaloo, take us up!"