Dark Phoenix of Konoha by White Angel of Auralon

Part 29 - A Much Expected Fight

A Much Expected Fight

You could nearly cut the air with a knife. The villagers of Konoha had waited to see this fight for the last month. Nearly none of them had seen one of the competitors in this one since the start of the chunin exams. Many were torn in their feelings. They had hated the boy for years and now, suddenly, he was revealed to be the son of the man they revered more than nearly any other ninja in their village's history. The only one holding the same amount of positive feelings in their minds was the Shodai Hokage. Naruto Namikaze, formerly known as Naruto Uzumaki, was the container of the Kyubi, a secret that they couldn't talk about under pain of death. Nearly nobody knew really that much about him.

His team had certainly not been around a lot in the village. While those interested in the finalists had looked up the mission history of the teams, there was little to say what kind of missions they had done. Anything beyond C-ranks and their number was qualified under orders of the Sandaime Hokage. So while they knew that Team Seven had taken a surprisingly large number of C and D-ranked missions, they didn't know much about the abilities of the team that had been trained by the Godaime. The other two members of the team had shown impressive skills and creativity. Of course many thought that even if Naruto was the son of their beloved Yondaime he couldn't be that strong, their dislike for him was simply too big. Others reasoned that the dead-last of his class couldn't be that impressive.

The only ones really interested in seeing how strong the boy really was were the ones from ninja families. Especially the clan ninjas knew that Naruto had hidden his abilities during his time at the academy and had only stopped doing so after he had graduated completely. Those whose children were part of the training group of the three rookie teams were really looking forward to seeing his true level.

Naruto stood calmly opposite Shino. He knew that Shino would have come up with some creative tricks, but it would still not be his most difficult opponent. He had after all researched all the clans of Konoha and knew that for their bugs to pose a real danger to him they needed to make contact with his skin first. And Shino knew that Naruto knew that point. In their previous spars Shino had never managed to win against Naruto, but he had been one of the stronger ones. And Shino was very smart, just a bit less than Shikamaru. So this would be interesting.

Shino watched Naruto closely. He didn't show an ounce of nervousness. He didn't expect him to do so. Naruto was the strongest of their group, but it would be foolish to expect him to be overconfident. Naruto never messed around in a fight. He even took all their spars in training serious. He was the most difficult opponent in the finals. Not even that psycho Gaara could change anything about that. After all, getting hits on a mentally insane person was easier than a smart opponent that was fully in control over his impressive set of skills. And Shino seriously doubted that Gaara would stand a chance against Naruto.

The proctor gave them the signal to start. Shino had already sent a good number of his bugs through the ground. He needed to set the location to have a chance. He saw Naruto taking his stance. That was the faster of his two styles. That would be a problem. Shino let a flurry of shuriken fly to not let Naruto get into his rhythm too fast. Naruto as expected sped to the right and quickly set to closing the distance between them. Shino just hadn't expected him to be this fast. He must have deactivated at least two levels of his resistance seals. And nobody truly knew which level they were normally at, only that Naruto's were years older than theirs and that he had his some levels over them.

Shino barely got his defence up before the first hit from Naruto connected. Shino tried blocking and dodging. Sometimes he succeeded, but many hits got through as Shino wasn't the best at taijutsu. Still, he let his bugs use the contact to go over to Naruto. After a fast exchange Naruto jumped back and to Shino's surprise he grinned.