Neji lay on his back, staring blankly upwards just as he had at the end of his match, still looking at nothing even though the drifting white clouds had been replaced by a white ceiling somewhere along the way. That’s right, he thought distantly. Hospitals are white too, aren’t they? Just like back home…

There was the sound of a door opening, and a familiar voice compelled the medics to rush out the room and close the door behind them.

“What do you want?” he asked, not bothering to see who entered.

“I came to see how you were doing,” said the solemn voice of Hyūga Hiashi. “And also, to tell you something I realize I should have told you a long time ago: The truth of what happened to your father.”

This time Neji did crane his head to see. Lord Hiashi was wearing his formal white robes and brown haori, and the expression on his face was both serious and concerned, though that was not unusual.

He rose up slightly. “What are you talking about? You did tell me: My father chose to take his own life rather than to be punished after he failed to prevent Lady Hinata from being abducted by a Cloud ninja.” Perhaps he gave his reply too brusquely, but it was absurd to think that Neji could ever have forgotten.

“That is indeed what I told you,” Lord Hiashi agreed, seating himself on the bed opposite Neji and neatly folding his robes to prevent creases. “However, that is not what truly transpired. The truth is that the person who tried to abduct Hinata was none other than your father, my brother Hyūga Hizashi himself.”

Neji sat up straight, not trusting himself to speak. Somehow, it was not as much of a shock as it should have been. Perhaps a part of him had suspected, all along?

“I could not believe it at first,” Hiashi admitted, “but when he explained it to me I finally understood. He had carried the burden of that mark on your forehead his whole life, but he always performed his role without complaint. Yet when it became time for you to be marked as well… somehow that was too much for him to bear. Perhaps he thought that you might have been made the heir, if my daughter was out of the picture, as even then the differences in talent had been plain to see. Or perhaps the idea of you being placed beneath her was simply too much of an insult for him to bear.”

“Why tell me this now?” Neji clutched at the hospital sheets, his knuckles white. “After all this time…”

“I wanted to save my nephew the shame of being the son of a traitor,” Hiashi said softly. “That is truly the reason why I invented that story, but today I realized I should have told you much sooner. Perhaps I hesitated because I myself wanted to maintain the illusion. He was my brother, after all.”

Perhaps it was only the exhaustion, but Neji found it very difficult to hate the Lord Hyūga in that moment. Moreover, for his father to target Hinata purely because she made for an easier target, that was just… cowardly.

He stared hard at the floor’s stone tiles, and spoke with a trembling voice. “Then… since it was my father’s dying wish, will you remove the Mark of the Servant now?” He touched the lines on his forehead, and flinched, though of course he no longer felt any pain.

Hiashi’s voice grew stern. “The separation of our houses is a tradition that goes back to the inception of the Hyūga clan – I cannot make an exception to that merely because my selfish brother wished it so. We each must accept the role we are given in life. Young as you are, I expect you to understand that much.”

“I see,” Neji said emptily. “Then, if that is everything, please let me rest. I am still very tired.”

As soon as he heard the door close, Neji got up and walked to the window, staring up at the sky once more. Right in the midst of those drifting white clouds, he thought he saw a single bird fly freely.

Uchiha Sasuke… it seems that you were right about everything. Just like your clan, my family is also a pit of vipers, though you are their heir while I am but a servant. Perhaps we are not so different, after all?

He would have to go and apologize to Lady Hinata, as soon as he could.

-o-

The examiner had called for a long break after the last match, presumably to give Naruto more time to fret and worry himself to death. There was just so much going on: So many competing strands of thought that all clamoured for his attention, each more pressing and disconcerting than the one before.

He was going to fight Gaara of the Desert: The person who had killed or tried to kill someone almost every single time he had appeared. Naruto had no idea how he was even supposed to fight someone like that, but he had sworn to defeat him right in front of everyone and to forfeit now was unthinkable. Well, it was not really unthinkable because he was thinking it right at that moment, but…

…but also Sasuke had used Madara’s technique. He had called upon the darkness as though it was nothing, and Naruto had only just started to untangle the implications of that when he realized it was the exact same technique he could also use. He should have realized it much earlier, but of course the transformation technique which worked by bending light could also be used to create pure darkness, which would naturally take the form of a sphere if the range was expanded to the limits of one’s chakra control. That meant that Madara’s secret power that everyone feared so much was just a simple application of an academy-level technique, which nobody else had thought to use because they all thought of power as being able to cast a bigger fireball. Naruto only now understood what the Fourth had truly meant when he wrote in his letter that it was the Enemy’s wisdom that he feared the most.

…but more importantly he was about to fight the host to the One-Tailed Beast, which if Kurama could be believed had been driven insane through countless deaths and rebirths and was now actively trying to compel his host to let it out so it could destroy the world. He could not even begin to imagine how that might tie into the Enemy’s plans, except that for all he knew the Enemy could be right here in the audience waiting for the right opportunity to release the beast from Gaara’s stomach and control it, just as they had done with Kurama fourteen years ago. And if that was the case, should Naruto forfeit his match to foil those plans, or would defeating Gaara be more likely to achieve that?

“Attention everyone!” the examiner called out. “The match begins in five minutes. I would like to ask all of you to please take your seats and for the contestants to start heading towards the arena.”

Naruto found himself standing up on trembling legs and moving towards the stairs without any conscious decision on his part. It was as though he were caught in a torrent that pushed him inexorably in one direction, almost like when Sakura had unleashed her water scroll on him.

“Hey, wait! Hold on a second.”

Naruto stumbled around in a crude mockery of a Ninja’s sharp reflexes, and found himself staring at a small round face with her hair bound in buns like a pair of big round ears. “Tenten? Why are you here? I thought you were still mad at me.”

“Of course I’m still mad at you!” she huffed. “I won’t forgive you so easily for insulting poor Lee like that. But, I also realize that if he had fought against the guys who’s waiting for you down below, Lee wouldn’t just have gotten hurt – he would be dead. So, you’d better make sure you don’t lose to him!”

Naruto blinked. “But… I thought you…”

“She’s right, you know.” Shikamaru was still lazing in his seat, not bothering to look up. “This is not the sort of guy you can afford to take lightly. He hasn’t faced any real challenge yet, so I’m willing to bet that he still has some tricks up his sleeve. He’ll use them the moment it starts to look like he’s losing, so don’t let your guard down.” As Shikamaru’s team moved past the row of seats to join him, the corner of his lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “And hey, I’m just glad it’s you facing him instead of one of us.”

Ino gave Naruto an encouraging smile, while Chōji extended a meaty hand. “It’s a bag of soldier pills,” the boy prompted. “They’re our clan’s special recipe. I’m not really supposed to share them with outsiders, but my dad also gave them to Kakashi-sensei to improve his stamina, so it should be okay.”

Naruto took the bag wordlessly, unsure of what to say.

Hinata and Neji arrived closely behind the others (Did they seem more friendly with each other now? When had that happened?). It took Hinata a second to find her voice, but when she did she spoke she almost sounded confident. “Naruto-kun… all my life I used to think that I was a failure as a ninja. You were the first to prove me wrong. I – I truly believe you have a power that your enemy cannot hope to match.” Her face flushed as she realized that he was staring at her.

Hyūga Neji nodded in agreement. “I have seen you fight against my teammate, Lee. You will not lose.”

Naruto stared at them, the world failing to make sense to him once more. “I don’t… I don’t understand. None of you said anything like this to me before, so why now?” What did I do? What changed?

“It seems logical to me.” Naruto jumped as insects began to crawl over his skin, but then he turned and saw that it was just Shino being creepy as always. “Why is that? Because we all witnessed Gaara killing a Leaf ninja right in front of us. I told you once that friendship means standing together for the sake of the collective, so it only makes sense that we would wish to unite against such a dangerous enemy.”

“Finally the man says something I can get behind!” Kiba slapped Shino on the shoulder with a feral grin, while Lee joined up with them as well. Naruto had no idea that the two of them had been out of the hospital, never mind that they were watching the matches here with him. “That bastard’s been going around acting like he owns the place, and he needs teaching a lesson. Anyone who goes after one of us has to deal with all of us!”

Shino’s insects were filling his coils with chakra, Naruto realized, but there must have been some special quality to it because it was generating the strangest feeling – like there was an even greater power flowing through his veins.

At last Sakura strode up to him, a serious expression on her face. She held out a large scroll which she thrust at his chest. “Naruto, you’re an absolute idiot for refusing to forfeit this match, but if you absolutely must fight Gaara then I don’t want to see you lose because I didn’t do enough to help.” She nodded towards the scroll, which Naruto gingerly accepted. “It’s the water scroll Tenten helped me fill,” she explained. “I already used up most of it against you, but it should still help to slow down his Sand.”

“Sakura-chan,” he said, “I don’t…”

She was upon him on the instant, nearly crushing the scroll between them as she gave him a lung-crushing hug. “Please don’t die, Naruto,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself a second time.”

It was too much, just too much. Like a question in an academy exam for which he had not studied, he had not the faintest idea of how to deal with this. Tears were forming in his eyes, and it was all he could do not to let them fall, because crying right before a battle was a terrible idea and in any case it would just make him look like even more of an idiot.

He searched for the one person who was missing, and found him leaning casually against the railing, looking like he had just escaped from a hospital bed – which in fact he probably had. Sasuke’s wounds appeared to have been closed at least, even if his clothes were tattered, so the bandages seemed largely symbolic.

“What are you looking at, dropout?” The last of the Uchiha smirked at him. “I’m not about to hug you if that’s what you’re waiting for. If anything I should be rooting for Gaara – I have to face whoever wins here after all, and out of everyone in this exam you are the person I’d want to fight the least.”

Naruto stared at him, speechless. Somehow, those lightly barbed words seemed to matter more than everything else combined, purely because of who it was that spoke them. Chakra seemed to explode out of his veins as the insects filled him up till bursting, and when the swarm departed they took all of his fears and worries with them. He flexed his fingers experimentally, and found his fists brimming with unreleased strength, while his mind reviewed the upcoming match with perfect clarity. The inexorable force pushing him onwards had vanished; there was no longer any reason to fight Gaara at all.

He smiled inwardly. The others would call him an idiot and complain about wasted effort when he let them know that he was forfeiting the match, but none of that seemed to matter anymore. But right as he was about to admit defeat, an even better solution seemed to slide in place. The very act of facing up to doing what he feared the most had finally allowed him to realize that he did not have to.

“Hold on!” he called out, as he ran off in the other direction. “Stall for me! I gotta go bathroom!”

The others all cried out in protest, and the examiner swore that Naruto would be disqualified on the spot if he did not show up immediately, but Naruto paid them no heed. For once, he could see the path ahead with perfect clarity, and their patience was rewarded by the sight of an orange ninja leaping into the arena, with the light of the sun behind his back as he hurled towards the ground like a meteor.

“Gaara! I don’t care who you are or how strong you are – this fight you lose!”

-o-

The redheaded boy stared back at him, unfazed, and Naruto grinned weakly in return.

“I’m gonna show you that you’re wrong about everything,” he said. “All that crap about there being no justice and honour and it being easier to just kill anyone you like… It’s just like I said to Lee: I’ll show everyone who’s watching that there’s advantages to being sane, even if I gotta beat the stuffing out of you to do it!”

“That is a foolish thing to say,” said Gaara. “Do dead men in Konoha all say such foolish things?”

“All right then,” said the examiner, chewing on a senbon as he examined the two contestants. “If you’re finally both ready, I declare that this semi-final round of the Chūnin Exams shall now… begin!”

Sand shot out of Gaara’s gourd even as Naruto cast the shadow clone technique and split into a dozen bodies, which ran off in every direction. Naruto immediately lost track of where and who he was as the Sand took out more than half of them, but none of that mattered. All he had to do was last until-

Yet more clones popped into existence as they all cast the technique again, and his chakra plunged at an alarming rate, but now they had him surrounded. He unfurled his water scroll and blasted Gaara’s sand defences at full force. In response a lance of wet sand smashed into him, but all that it achieved was that the world shifted until he was on the other side of the arena, still blasting water at the enemy. Cloned scrolls access the same storage space, he thought triumphantly, but there was no time to cheer as half the clones charged forward on a silent command while the rest hurled shuriken at their enemy. The sand instinctively rose up to block the shuriken, and a sweep of Gaara’s arm resulted in the sand taking out several more clones that rushed at him with swords drawn, but several more had managed to leap over his attacks or had body-flickered behind him. Then the world burst into blinding light as they activated his Lightbringer technique, and for just one instant Naruto could see the outline of Gaara shielding himself as the clones fell upon him before they activated the explosive seals on their palms and the whole scene became consumed by a ball of fire.

The ground shook beneath Naruto’s feet as the shockwave thundered through his body, and he only barely remained standing. There were only a few clones left in the arena now, and he realized in shock that the chakra of the others had not returned to him and neither had their memories.

“Blood,” he heard a voice distantly say, and as he looked up he saw that Gaara was standing, staring at his hands as wet sand crumbled and fell from his skin – the boy had worn the sand on his body like armour, using the transformation technique to make it look like skin. “You… you injured me?”

Naruto stared at his opponent, who was indeed bleeding slightly, drops of red running down his hands and face and dripping onto the arena grounds. There was a look in the boy’s eyes like someone haunted – no, angry, or perhaps… excited?

Gaara’s lips twisted into a sick grin. “Uzumaki Naruto… I was right about you. The way you fight is the same as mine – caring only to destroy your enemy with nothing held back.”

“Don’t give me that crap,” said Naruto, far less eager to continue the argument now that he had used up most of his chakra and the rush from before had worn off. “I wasn’t trying to kill you, I was just…” What had he been doing? His chest tightened at the thought: That explosion certainly could have killed his enemy – would have killed his opponent but for the armour he wore. Somehow the fight had gotten away from him, just like it had against Lee. “I was just… I was only…”

Gaara’s grin widened further, eyes manic. “There is no need to hide it any longer, Uzumaki Naruto. You do not need to be concerned with the opinions of others for as long as you are stronger than them. As a ninja the instinct to kill has been instilled within you since birth – it is only natural for you to desire the destruction of your enemies.” The wet sand gathered under the mad boy’s feet, and before Naruto could do anything Gaara was floating up into the air on a carpet of sand.

“You are not allowed to leave the arena,” the examiner reminded them from his hideout at the very edge of the arena. “You may only fly as high as the arena walls, or else you will be disqualified!”

But that was still higher than most of Naruto’s attacks could reach, and as long as Gaara stayed close to the centre there was no advantage in running up the walls, either. “Look,” he tried, “I’m sorry I almost killed you, all right? I can forfeit the match if you want, but you still killed a whole bunch of people and I can’t just stand by and let you keep doing that. If you’d just listen for a moment and hear me out…”

Gaara’s sand gathered in the air like a looming thundercloud, and it rained down on him just as it had done against Yoroi. Naruto cursed and formed seals to raise a barrier of earth all around him, the walls closing at the top to form a dome even as the globs of slush pelted the fortification. He cast the shadow clone technique again, and suddenly he was on the outside, running wildly to avoid being hit.

The sand above him coalesced into a single projectile, condensing with such force that all the water was squeezed out of it, and hurled down into the fortification he had just left behind. Naruto winced as the shelter exploded in a cloud of dirt, but there was no time to look back: He cast the shadow clone technique once more, this time focusing his chakra on cloning just a single kunai. The seal on his palm flared into life as he used the explosive chakra to fuel his technique, and then he hurled the explosive dagger at the floating platform with all his might. The Shadow Clone technique shattered on impact and the weapon detonated along with half a dozen others that the clones had thrown at the same time.

When the dust cleared there was an orb of sand hovering in the air, Gaara having pulled his projectiles back in order to make his defences even more impenetrable than before. Only one option left…

Naruto cursed inwardly as he unsealed a drop of his own blood from yet another seal on his thumb, not wanting to dispel his own cloned body. He formed the signs for the summoning technique and slammed his hands down on the ground. There was a blast of air that revealed a yellow toad staring dumbly ahead – the same one he had summoned before. Gaara was not the type to use genjutsu, Naruto hoped. “Yellow toad,” he said. “Uh, Gamatatsu. Shoot water at that guy. Go!”

The toad croaked once, and then a blast of pressurized water spewed from its mouth and into Gaara’s sphere of sand, which shook from the impact even as the sand grew wet and heavy once more. Immediately the orb began flying at rapid speed around the arena, and Naruto stared in wonder for a moment at the fact that Gaara was doing all of this blindly, but then one of his clones dispelled itself and he realized that Gaara had an eye of sand floating in a corner of the arena. He lifted his left palm to shoot a concentrated beam of light at it, but one of the other clones had beaten him to it and the eye hurriedly flew off, zipping around the battlefield even as blinding rays were shot at it from every angle.

Gaara’s orb juddered in mid-flight, and Naruto was about to chase after it when suddenly motes of sand closed in on him from every direction. He hurriedly unleashed a blast of wind to hurl them away. All over the arena his clones were doing the same, and Naruto realized that Gaara had been trying to take all of them out at the same time. He was only pretending to need all his sand for defence! But that means-

A torrent of sand hurled from the sky to strike the ground behind him, and Naruto twisted around to see the yellow toad disappear beneath a mound of sand. “Gamatatsu!” He ran blindly towards it, only to stop as the mound collapsed to reveal nothing beneath. One of his shadow clones had managed to cancel the technique just in time and sent the animal back to its home, he realized with faint relief.

“Why are you pretending to care about that creature?” Gaara was watching him curiously from above, his head peeking out from behind a hole in the floating orb. “From the first instance of its summoning its uselessness to you has been made readily apparent. That is why you chose to field it against me after all: In selecting it you judged the value of its life, and found it wanting.”

Naruto opened his mouth to deny it, but found that he could not. Mad he might be, but Gaara was not wrong: When Temari’s spirit animal died there had been true anguish in her scream, as if she had lost a dear friend, whereas Naruto had treated the toad as little more than a weapon to be used – merely another technique in his arsenal. Somehow, the guilt that arose only served to fuel his nascent anger.

Kurama’s words resounded in his head once more: “Small wonder the frogs and snakes are all domesticated, with us as an example of what should happen to them if they ever refuse your will…”

“It’s not like that,” he said, balling his fists in frustration. “I know I don’t always think before I act, but at least I’m trying to be a good person. That’s no excuse for you to just go around killing whoever you like!”

“Is that what you choose to believe about yourself?” The orb of sand drifted downwards until Gaara’s eyes were almost level with Naruto’s. “Look around you, Uzumaki Naruto: You are in an arena fighting a battle to the death against another who is doing the same. You are a killer seeking to kill killers for the entertainment of those who only wish they could be killers, all so that you can be promoted to a killer of a higher rank. You are here because you have been trained since birth to kill others and it is the one thing you are skilled at, and you know of no other way to win the respect of the killers you call friends.”

Naruto stared at him, choking back the bile that welled up in his throat, only for it to churn in his stomach like sickness. It was as if everything that had been bothering him about the exams came back to him with twice the force: The fact that the Head of Torture and interrogation, Morino Ibiki, planned and oversaw the written test, followed by the mad Anko and the apathetic Hayate Gekko. The way everything had been designed as if to maximise the violence, with almost no regard for their wellbeing… the way Kiba had been beaten and carried off right in front of the Third Hokage as if it were the most normal thing in the world. All carried out by the Anbu and their spies in the Hyūga clan, who were watching him always – as though he was no less a tool of the Village than the toad had been to him.

He averted his eyes, turning to the audience, but their expressions seemed warped and monstrous now. Some were cheering for their conflict, while others were booing and shouting for them to continue the match. A lone old man stood and shook his cane at them, the bloodlust palpable in his beady little eyes.

He forced his gaze back to Gaara, but by now his visage had changed as well. It was no longer just the bored monotone that disturbed him; even more than the history of casual murder, it was the pale light in his eyes which made Naruto shrink back in fear. “Do you see now, Uzumaki Naruto? Do you see the true nature of the world?” The orb touched upon the earth, and as Gaara formed hand seals a sick and twisted grin split across his face. “Then I have only one more question for you: What are the odds that I would destroy thirty-seven of your shadow clones so far, and not hit your true body even once?”

With those words Gaara closed his eyes and touched the edge of his orb, as though sensing all the earth around him, and when he opened them the light in his eyes redoubled. “You really are most interesting, Uzumaki Naruto: Of all the opponents I have ever faced, you are the first to ever fight back!”

A spear of sand burst from the ground to impale Naruto, and then that Shadow clone too was no more.

-o-

The real Naruto stumbled and almost tripped over his feet as the memories of his clones struck him over and over, but he forced himself to focus on his own task. The streets were nearly deserted, almost the whole Village having left to watch the exams. He dashed through the narrow alleyways of Konoha without pause, relying on his transformation-technique to shroud him in the guise of a civilian, which he now knew would prevent even the Byakugan from making out his true form since it could not pierce chakra.

The optimal strategy had become obvious the moment he accepted that the exams were not worth dying over: He had realized then that getting disqualified was not strictly a worse outcome than forfeiting, and so the option of cheating purely dominated that of risking his life – or so he had thought.

Hope rose in his chest at the familiar sight of his apartment complex appearing before him, and he sped towards the stairs with such speed that he slammed into the wall before he could turn. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder he ran up five steps at a time, fumbling for his keys and slamming the door behind him upon entry. He crashed onto the floor, struggling vainly to get his breathing under control.

Behind him, sand was already forcing its way under the crack and through the keyhole.

Naruto stared in horror at the sight, his pained gasps burning in his chest. It was just like fighting Haku in the house amongst the fire and the ice, except this time his enemy was trying to kill him.

The sand coalesced in front of him, forming a naked eye that twisted and turned before settling on him, followed by a gaping mouth of sand that formed beneath it. “Uzu… Uzu-maki, Na-ru-to…”

A hand of sand grasped at him, and Naruto shrieked as he sent a panicked blast of wind to hurl it away, only for the sand to gather once more, forming a full head and body this time. Naruto spun and rushed through the hallway and into the dirty half-kitchen, pain flaring in his back as something slammed into him from behind. He ran straight towards the large oaken door of Jiraiya’s room, not stopping at the sound of dishes crashing to the floor. He entered and slammed the door shut behind him.

If the seals in Jiraiya’s bedroom were not capable of keeping Gaara out, nothing would.

Without looking behind him, Naruto grabbed the giant scroll leaning against the desk next to the bed, the quickest glance confirming that it was the right one. He spread it out on the floor – ignoring the scratching and scraping sounds that were coming from the door – and searched for the empty spot next to his name and Jiraiya’s. Then he cast the summoning technique again, and this time a tadpole the size of his fist appeared on the scroll, spitting out a small and grimy vial before disappearing once more. With no time to look for a quill, Naruto dipped his finger in the sandy red liquid, and began writing.

-o-

Naruto swallowed another of Chōji’s soldier pills, hoping fervently that the side effects would be spread out over his many bodies as well, and continued the fight. All around the arena Shadow clones were disappearing, their memories crashing into him with such frequency that he barely even noticed anymore. Gaara had pulled out a giant scroll of his own, and from it had burst forth a fountain of sand like Sakura’s water scroll – so much of it that it threatened to drown the arena.

Gaara of the Desert… so that’s what they meant…

More than just the sheer volume of sand, the use of it had changed entirely: Gaara had unsealed weapons and tools, countless hands of sand hurling projectiles at his clones and operating crossbows, slings and other strange devices. Motes of sand were carrying explosive seals around the battlefield, destroying countless shadow clones no matter where they ran or how they tried to fight, and it was all Naruto could do to keep all of the clones from being destroyed at once.

And all the while, Gaara was sitting up there in his floating castle of sand, watching, seeming to enjoy it.

“Gaara,” Naruto pleaded once more. “Gaara, this is pointless. You know you can’t kill me like this, and I can – I can just…” Give up, his brain finished. Do it. He turned to face the examiner. “I… I’ll just forfeit.”

“Is that it, then?” asked the examiner. “You have to say the words in order. Say: I forfeit the match.”

“No, stop.” They both turned to look upwards, for it was Gaara who had spoken. “Don’t… don’t forfeit.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” At last, some semblance of control returned to Naruto. “You’re trying to kill me.”

Gaara’s mouth work silently in search of a reason, his eyes frantic (they were yellow now). “I… I will…” He turned to face the audience. “I will murder your friends if you quit.” He nodded to himself, relieved. “Yes, that’s it: If you quit, I will kill all your friends slowly. So you see, you have to fight.”

“You’ll kill my friends,” Naruto repeated, hollowly. He followed Gaara’s gaze towards the stands, to where Sakura watched him mutely, Tenten with her hands over her mouth, Kiba cheering him on while Sasuke tried vainly to look casual, not quite able to hide the worry in his eyes. “You mean those friends, right over there?” He spotted Hinata and Neji, Shikamaru and the others, watching, all rooting for him to win. “I’m just asking, in case the Anbu in the audience didn’t quite get which of my friends you just threatened to kill right in front of everybody.”

“Do you imagine they care?” Gaara’s grin returned again – his lips were almost quivering now. “At any point during this exam your Hokage could have stopped the fighting and saved the lives of those who perished, but he did not because your existence means nothing to him.” Naruto turned to glance up at the balcony where the Third was seated next to the Kazekage, watching impassively. “To harm the Kazekage’s son is to harm the Kazekage and that makes my life valuable to him, but the Hokage only desires peace: Thus he has measured the value of your life against his interests, and found it wanting.”

Naruto stared at Gaara first in horror, followed by rage, and then a volatile mix of either that eclipsed both. Sand was gathering around Gaara, forming an ever thicker second skin, and at last Naruto realized what was happening. Once again, the voice of Kurama resounded in his head. “There is nothing left of him, kit. Just as I am called the Incarnate of Rage by some, so he has become the Whisper of Oblivion.”

“Don’t do it,” he whispered, despairingly. “I can’t tell you how, but I know what you’re doing. Gaara… If you release that thing there’s no telling what’s gonna happen; you have no idea what you’d unleash!”

“…it is said that Shukaku’s host can never sleep: His voice stays with him always, babbling lunacy and hatred into his ears, forever looking for an opening to destroy all life…”

“There is only power,” Gaara said in a faraway voice. “Killing is justice, honour is dishonour and there is no love but the love which you bear for yourself. It all becomes so much clearer when you understand that – It makes the world hurt so much less.” The sand was forming into a tail now, swishing to and fro behind him as blue markings appeared on the sand which increasingly resembled living skin. “Yes,” he whispered, “yes, you are right, of course… I shall kill them for you. Yes, yes, it is time…”

“Fine then,” Naruto spat, turning away. From the corner of his eye he could spot distant movement in the stands, like Shinobi making ready to act, but he no longer cared enough to see. Fury burned in his veins, his ire scorching the very air around him until only his enemy remained within his field of vision. “I keep making the same mistake, over and over and over again… I keep trying to reason with people who cannot be reasoned with, and it never, ever, ever works!” As another shadow clone stepped next to him he drew his sword and focussed chakra into it, his control over what little remained greater than ever before, until he could almost imagine seeing it shimmer with purest Wind. “Have it your way.”

Gaara laughed from on top of his ramparts, mockingly, hauntingly, his voice a drunken giggle. “How are you planning to hit me with that, Uzumaki Naruto?” His eyes had turned into yellow diamonds.

“Like this.” The clone next to him slammed his hands on the ground, his fingers red from the bloody sand he had gathered from where Gaara had been injured, and then Gaara was standing there right in front of him, his bright yellow eyes staring dumbly ahead. Behind him, the sand castle fell from the sky.

“All I ask is that if you do what must be done, you are quick about it… for my sake.”

Naruto struck out once, his chakra blade slicing through Gaara’s sand armour like paper, and the boy watched stupidly as his innards spilled out onto the arena grounds. His eyes widened in horror as he finally realized what was happening to him, and he opened his mouth to scream but Naruto was faster: The point of his sword went straight through the roof of Gaara’s mouth and out the back of his skull.

He pulled the sword back out, and Gaara’s body collapsed. The sand castle crashed into the earth.

“Well?” he cried out, turning to face the Hokage’s balcony with bloody sword in hand, his fury bursting forth from every pore. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Children killing each other for your amusement?”

There was a brief moment of silence, and then the audience burst into devastating applause.