Sorry for the delay not only writers block, but also ADD acted up. I'll try to stay focused more on. Please review whether good or bad I want them all. I love hearing others opinions it helps me grow as a writer. Thanks for your reviews I apritiate them alot.

Chapter Three

"Let the nineth match of the chunin exams preliminaries begin!" Hayate jumped back after finishing the statement as to not get caught in the middle of the ensuing fight. When he jumped back Gaara and Lee looked at each other, when Lee moved his right hand up to catch something that was moving so fast that many people in the crowd couldn't see "A little excited are we?" Lee dropped what looked like a cork, which those in the stands that couldn't see it flying realized that that is what was shot at Lee apparently from Gaara. Before the cork hit the floor Lee was moving so fast that the genin could barely see him 'till Gaara's sand blocked his attack allowing the spectators to see Lee. Gaara's sand went to attack Lee, but he dodged it just in the nick of time. It kept going like this, Lee would try to attack only for Gaara's sand to block then go to counter attack for Lee to dodge for a little over three minutes.

As Lee was attacking Gaara and Gaara's sand was blocking, Naruto was watching on along with the others at his place beside Hinata; his arms where folded as he watched the fight. Naruto hears Sakura ask Guy "Why doesn't Lee get out of taijutsu range and use nin or genjutsu?"

Guy looks at Sakura "That would be a good idea, except that Lee can't use nin or genjutsu."

Sakura looks at Guy like she didn't believe what he just said "What do you mean he can't use nin or genjutsu? Surely he can use the lowest level jutsu right?"

Guy shakes his head "No, Lee was born with a rare disorder that made his chakra circulatory system not develop properly, meaning that he can't mold chakra so he devoted all of his time to master taijutsu, and he's become a genius of hard work!" At the end of his explanation Guy got so excited that he started yelling.

Naruto still looking at the match talks to Guy "He has no nin or genjutsu right?"

Guy looks at Naruto and nods "Correct."

Naruto grins "Then he could learn how to use ki better than anyone else in this world."

Everyone around him looks at him wondering what he means, Ino voices everyone's thoughts "What do you mean ki Naruto?"

Naruto keeps his grin on his face while continuing watching the match "Chakra is the combination of physical and mental energies; well ki is only physical energy, for someone that has only known how to use chakra all there life learning how to use ki would be near impossible, however for someone like Lee learning it should be fairly easy."

Sakura looks at him "But wouldn't this ki, being physical energy in its base form, be weaker than when combining it with mental energy to make chakra?"

Naruto chuckles a little "For anything else you'd be right Sakura, but with ki and spiritual energy, which is another name for mental energy, the pure uncombined forms are far superior than chakra in terms of power; however the applications that chakra can be used for sometimes surpass the other two energies, like let's say fuinjutsu or the art of sealing for instance has way more usage than anything either chakra or spiritual energy could ever hope to accomplish."

Guy gets a gleam in his eyes and speaks with enough enthusiasm to match any twenty man team "If you would teach Lee this ability to use ki I'd most grateful!"

Naruto looks away from the fight to look at Guy "It would be my pleasure Guy-sensei. Now then let's go back to watching the match."

Ino wouldn't have any of that and voice her thought with a scowl on her face "Oh no you don't Naruto, I want to know how you know these things and how you changed so much; I mean you even reciprocated Hinata's feelings towards you, that couldn't of just happened."

Naruto looks at Ino "I am going to tell Sakura and if she decides to tell you then ok I won't care, but until that time you'll have to wait 'cause I'm going to tell Hinata, then old man Hokage, and then my team. Ok?"

Ino huffs and looks away "If you were going to be such a jerk about it then I wouldn't have even asked."

Naruto looks at Ino with a scowl on his face "If you consider me a jerk for wanting to share what happened, with my precious people first, then you are even more shallow than I originally thought you were."

Ino looked at Naruto with a furious glare "How dare you call me shallow, I'll have you know that if it wasn't for me then Shikamaru wouldn't had have won his match and wouldn't be going to the finals and you're calling me shallow!?"

Naruto returns her glare with one of his own while also releasing some killing intent, making the genin fall to their knees and even the jonin felt their knees getting weak just by being close to Naruto; having them all think 'How can Naruto produce so much killing intent?' Naruto breaths out cutting off his killing intent, which let the others breathe a sigh of relief, and turns back to the match, but says to Ino "From what you just said you just confirmed my earlier declaration that you where shallow by saying that it was you that let Shikamaru win, based off of that I'd say you probably forced both him and Choji to take the exams just so you could impress your precious Sasuke. Am I right?" When Ino didn't say anything it let everyone know that Naruto was correct, Kurenai couldn't believe what she just heard and it made her sick to think that a kunoichi would fall so low just for a boy, when Naruto didn't hear a reply he kept watching the match "You will get your answer more than likely after I tell my team 'cause I'm pretty sure that Sakura will tell you the next time you meet. Now then why don't we finish watching the match?"

After the genin got up, them along with the jonin looked back at the match to see Lee almost get hit by a wave of sand, the genin especially Sakura would've screamed if it wasn't for the jounin and Naruto looking up at the hand statue, when the genin looked up they were shocked to see Lee standing up there without a scratch on him; before the match could continue Guy screamed "Lee take them off!"

Lee looked at Guy with astonishment then changed to excitement, after Guy gave Lee a thumbs up with a big smile that had his teeth sparkle Lee sat down and started taking something off what looked like weights, after taking them off Lee stood up holding the weights in outstretched arms.

Everyone except Guy was wandering why Lee and his sensei thought that taking off a little weight would help him out; Temari voiced their thoughts "Pfff. Does he really think that removing a little weight will be enough to beat Gaara?"

However they were all shown just how much the weights actually weighed when Lee released them from his grip letting them fall to the ground, once the weights hit the ground a huge plume of dust was kicked up, and when the dust cleared the spectators (except Guy) where even more shocked when there were two twelve foot diameter craters on the arena's floor now. After the dust cleared Lee let out a sigh of relief "Ha. That feels much better, now's the time to put my flames of youth to the test against this worthy foe!" Lee seemed to disappear and reappear in front of Gaara with a fist outstretched from a punch he through, but was blocked by Gaara's sand; before Gaara could order his sand to attack, Lee vanished again only to reaper behind Gaara with another punch that the sand was barely able to block, Lee disappeared once more and reappeared to Gaara's left with a kick that the sand wasn't able to block allowing Lee to be the first person ever to hit Gaara. Gaara was pushed to the side from the force of the blow that Lee dealt to him, before he could retaliate Lee already appeared on his right side and hit him with a right hook making him get knocked back to where he started from. Lee moved to Gaara's front kicking him under the chin knocking Gaara into the air; although it didn't seem to be high enough for Lee because he quickly jumped up into the air under Gaara where he started kicking Gaara repeatedly making him get higher and higher in the air till they were both about twenty-five feet from the ground; once they got to this height Lee winced from the strain the kicks put on him, once Lee got over the pain in his legs he wrapped his bandages around Gaara's body, angled them both downwards towards the ground, and started spinning "Primary Lotus!"

Lee and Gaara landed on the arena floor kicking up a lot of dust that obscured the spectators' view of the fight; through the dust Lee rolled out of the dust cloud and looked towards the cloud as it was clearing to reveal to Lee and the spectators Gaara crumbling into dust shocking those that didn't see what happened. Guy looked at the arena in shock "What happened; how did Gaara get out of Lee's grip?"

Kakashi was about to answer, but Naruto beat him to it "It was after he kicked Gaara those extra times to get him to the height required for the Primary Lotus, he flinched from the strain and in that moment you also closed your eyes in prayer that Lee would be OK; in that moment Gaara used a substitution with a sand clone that took the hit from the fall."

Everyone in the stands on the Leaf side looked at Naruto with curiosity in their eyes Asuma was the one to ask the question on everyone's mind "How did you know Guy closed his eyes in prayer when you never took your eyes off the match?"

While still looking at the match Naruto answered Asuma's question "I can fill the subtle vibrations in the air; that includes the opening and closing of eyelids; that's how I knew Guy closed his eyes."

Everyone looked at Naruto in shock not for the first time that day; after getting over their shock they all looked back at the fight to see Lee activated another two gates and was in the process of opening more. "Fourth Gate: Gate of Wonder. Open! Fifth Gate: Gate of Limit. Open!" With the activation of these two gates Lee's skin turned a dark red, his hair started flouting upwards; reminding Naruto of a certain races special transformation; and his eyes lost their pupils leaving them pure white. Lee moves with such speed that even the jounin and Naruto couldn't keep up with their eyes forcing Naruto to rely on his ability to sense life force energy to keep track of where Lee was, even though Gaara getting kicked around would've gave them a pretty good estimation of where Lee was; Naruto notices that after a minute and a half of Lee literally beating Gaara to a pulp that Lee was losing energy and fast. Not surprising after only twenty more seconds, Lee had to finish his devastating combo by wrapping Gaara with his right arms bandages and punching Gaara towards the ground then pulling him back towards Lee where Lee finished it with a kick that push both of them into the ground "Final Lotus!"

The impact kicked up a lot of dust that obscured the vision of all the spectators, but Naruto could tell by their aura that neither of the combatants where unconscious; this was proven true when Lee rolled out of the dust cloud a few seconds before it dispersed revealing that Gaara as well was not unconscious. Lee saw Gaara still conscious from breaking the fall with his sand and was shocked that Gaara wasn't knocked out and he got back up to finish the fight, but Gaara had other plans; as in wrapping his sand around Lee's left arm and leg "Sand Coffin. Sand Burial!" Gaara as customary when using this technique had his right arm extended with his right hand open then quickly closing it to control the sand into crushing his opponent; this resulted in Lee's left arm and leg being crushed with such force that it shattered his arm and leg and causing Lee to fall down on his side screaming in unadulterated pain; when Gaara's sand retreated back to him he got back up onto his feet and saw Lee still on the ground, he sent his sand to finish Lee off.

Before the sand could reach him though it was blown back by something jumping in front of Lee; that something was revealed to be Guy that moved in front of his student to protect him from the sand, upon seeing that his attack didn't make contact with his intended target Gaara stood up and had his sand get ready for another go at killing the green wearing genin even if he had to go through the boy's jonin to do it, but before he could command his sand to attack a sharp object was pressed against his neck which not only shock him, but everyone else in the stands and on the arena floor that someone got close enough to touch Gaara without having to worry about his sand; Gaara felt a chill go down his spine something that he's only experienced once before as the person behind him said "Don't even think about it Gaara; if I could get by your sand this easy than I could just as easily get through your sand armor and slit your throat. If you know what's good for you than you'll forget about your bloodlust and start walking back up to the spectator's area." Gaara was just about to order his sand to kill whoever dared threaten him, but he disappeared to reappear between Gaara and Guy who was now looking back at Lee who although was still unconscious was still standing through willpower alone. Gaara wasn't that surprised that the person turned out to be the one called Naruto Uzumaki who was sheathing his short sword until it made a 'click' sound signifying that it was fully sheathed. Gaara glared at Naruto for getting past his guard, but didn't want to get disqualified because then he wouldn't be able to please his mother with blood without any fuss; though he didn't care one way or the other, it was just easier to satisfy his mother without an entire village trying to kill you; so he turned towards the stands and started walking for the stairs.

Half way to the stairs Gaara stopped and looked over his shoulder at Naruto and Guy "Why do you protect him, when he is weak?"

Naruto glared at Gaara "I protected both of them because they were fellow leaf ninja and Guy-sensei protected Lee because he's his student."

Gaara looked back towards the stands and started walking again, after he passed through the entrance way Naruto looked back at Guy as the medics put Lee on a stretcher to take him to the infirmary; Naruto started to walk back towards the stands when he heard the doctor tell Guy "Are you his sensei?" Guy's answer was a nod "I'm sorry to tell you this, but with the damage done to his leg and arm as well as the strain from using the gates he will never be able to be a ninja again."

Naruto glanced over at Guy to see him crying over the fate of Lee; turning back toward the stands he continued his trek up the stairs and to his spot beside Hinata, where everyone was looking at him in amazement for being able to get behind Gaara without his sand even reacting allowing him to threaten him and save both Guy and Lee. It was Kiba that broke the silence that was made from their shock "Man, how did you do that? I mean we couldn't even take being like ten feet from that Gaara kid, but you just put him in his place without even having to fight him. Man, how did you get so strong?"

Naruto looked at the shocked faces of his friends and their senseis before sighing and looking at the arena "Like I told Ino Kiba, I'll tell Hinata and if she tells you, which I'm pretty sure she will 'cause I think she sees you and Shino as brothers, than I'm OK with that; so just be patient and you'll know exactly what's happened to make me change so much."

After Naruto said his piece Hayate revealed the participants of the next match "Will Choji Akimichi and Dosu Kinuta please come down to the arena." After the aforementioned competitors got down in the arena, Choji had to be bribed by Asuma with all you can eat stake, Hayate looked at Choji "You ready?" He received a nod; he looked at Dosu "You ready?" He got a nod also lifting his right arm up "Let the tenth match of the chunin exams preliminaries begin!"

Choji started off strong by quickly using his strongest jutsu "Ninja Art: Human Boulder!" Which expanded his body to five times its normal size; he then tucked in his arms, legs, and head; then started spinning at an impressive speed, he rolled towards Dosu which dodged the charge and the other three times after that, till he stayed put waiting for Choji; as soon as Choji got close enough that he couldn't change his trajectory Dosu dodged again causing Choji to run into the wall making him get imbedded into the wall and have only one way to get out, which was to stop rolling and shrink down, but as soon as he stopped Dosu charged toward him and punched with his gauntlet covered hand, activating the sound waves once his hand was imbedded into Choji's body; with the water that comprised most of the human body acting like a conductor Choji was knocked out almost instantly.

After Choji passed out from the amount of sound waves passing threw him and shrinking down to his normal size, Dosu jumped back and listened as the proctor called the match "Winner of the tenth and final match of the Chunin exams preliminaries is Dosu Kinuta!"

Dosu turned around and started walking back to the stands, but stopped when the Third Hokoge spoke "Would the winners of the matches please move to the arena floor." Dosu turned back around to walk back to the center of the arena where everyone else was moving towards to see what the Hokage had in store for the winners. Once everyone was in front of the Hokage and the other Jonin; Anko the proctor of the second stage of the Chunin Exams walked up beside the Hokage, who directed his words towards the winners of the preliminaries "Anko here will walk by each of you starting from the right and moving to the left with a box filled pieces of paper that have numbers on them, these numbers will reveal what order you will be fighting in during the finals; so please reach inside the box and take a piece out, then say the number aloud so that Ibiki can mark you on the board that is behind me to see who your opponent will be. Thank you."

Anko walked in front of Temari, which was the closest to her, and Temari reached inside and took out a piece of paper "7"

Moving to the left came in front of Kankurou "6"

Gaara "3"

Guy picking for Neji "2"

Shino "5"

Shikamaru "9"

Dosu "8"

Kakashi picking for Sasuke "4"

Naruto looks at Anko "I don't really have to pick" he motions toward Ibiki with his head making everyone look at him "there's only one slot left meaning it's going to be me verses Neji." Naruto gives a feral grin making the other finalists that where there except Gaara get a chill down there spine. "And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Anko huffs and looks at the Hokage "Well the kid ain't wrong, but maybe we should mix it up just to prove him wrong. What do you think Lord Hokage?"

Hiruzen rubs his chin in thought. "I'll think about it." He looks up at the participants of the Chunin exams "Until you hear otherwise you are to anticipate to battle the person that is written beside your name on the board, but I'd greatly advise to not just train to battle that person, but everyone on the board to be safe. Now if there are no questions I dismiss you all to start training for the finals of the Chunin exams. Good luck."

When it was shown that no one had any questions Hiruzen started walking for the exit of the arena fallowed by everyone else except Naruto who looked over at Hinata who was moving behind her sensei, he hurried over beside her "Hey Hinata, I want to tell you what happened to me. Do you have anything you need to do right now?"

Hinata looked at Kurenai who smiled and nodded at her; she looked back at Naruto with a small smile "No I have nothing I need to do right now; I'd love to hear how you got so strong Naruto." She blushed a little at the end having a hard time looking anywhere but at his muscles.

Naruto chuckled having a good idea of why she started blushing "Alright, you might want to hold on."

Before Hinata could ask what he meant Naruto picked her up in his arms and flew into the sky causing her to let out a startled scream which caused him to laugh a little bit. The others still on the ground looked up at the retreating Naruto and Hinata in his arms in shock, Choji was the one to speak "Did anyone know he could fly?" Everyone else shook their heads in the negative and continued to leave the arena in utter shock.

Unknown Training Ground

Naruto slowly landed in the field of the barely used area known as Training Ground 3; looking around he couldn't help but feel contented at knowing that it hasn't been touched sense he last used it nearly 4 weeks ago, doing a quick scan of the area he also noticed that amazingly it didn't seem that the grass has grown any and that it's just as beautiful as before with its big glimmering lake, its big gorgeous trees, and a decent sized area covered in flowers. Before he could reminisce about how he found the place to begin with he was reminded that he a guest in his arms when she spoke "Umm… Naruto C-C-Can you put me down." Once he remembered he was still holding her he quickly set her and apologized; though Hinata didn't hear his apology, because she was so mesmerized by the beautiful landscape before her.

Naruto realizing that she was in shock chuckled and came up behind her "Beautiful isn't it?" She squeaked from being startled and nodded, Naruto gave a small laugh "I found the year after we started the academy." Hinata looked back at him in astonishment for not know that he knew about this beautiful area that long and never told anyone about it. "It is my secret training grounds, but seeing as how it's been takin' care of so well even though I haven't been here in close to 4 weeks makes me think that the old man knows and get someone to keep it in top shape." Shaking his head to get back on trek he motions towards a tree that had a huge canopy "Come on let's sit over there." Hinata nods and fallows him over to the tree and sits down to the right of Naruto after he sits. "Ok; well let's start with how it all started."