DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.

No Free Ride to Redemption

By Corvus no Genmu

"Breaking the Lock"

It can easily be stated that most ninja clans have a special skill or ability that makes them, as a whole, a unique asset to have. The "normal" clans were weighed in a variety of ways; from the amount of members to how skilled the masters of the clan's particular jutsu were, while those of prestigious bloodlines were gauged by usefulness on the field and the progeny of said limit. Some villages adored these clans and others deplored them with a hatred that was beyond genocidal at the best of times. The Village Hidden in the Mist favored the clans of normal blood and, through the cowardice of the then reigning Mizukage, came to hate those of prestigious and powerful bloodline limits to such a degree that they all but crippled themselves in a massive civil war.

The Hidden Leaf was Mist's exact opposite in this and virtually everything else. Nearly eighty percent of the ninja community of Konoha was made up of some kind of bloodline from the simple to the powerful, but like all societies, these clans were not full equals. Oh they each had a seat in the Council but like a pyramid, there were those who served low to the ground while others stood just below the godling that was Hokage. The most powerful of the clans, they who truly gave Konoha its fierce reputation, stood like royalty beneath the Hokage and again, the sweet venom known as pride came into play…

In the years since the Uchiha Massacre, the Hyuuga became the new royalty of Konoha with the last Uchiha serving as the prodigal son of his dead clan. The Hyuuga were alike to the Uchiha clan in many ways, more than either clan would ever admit even to themselves. Both clans possessed powerful dojutsu so unique to themselves that many would believe the two almost related, a fact frowned upon most severely by both clans though it was true, by a degree. Yes, the byakugan and the sharingan were related but not by some mutation of the other, neither one came before the other. Instead, they were born from the same source, the Sage's elder son, but with the emergence of the two vastyly different dojutsu, the once whole family line became separate.

Separate though they might be now, the Uchiha and the Hyuuga were still part of the same brood, still children of darkness and vengeance. The Uchiha were ruled by their jealousy, their bitterness and in the final cast what was once a whole clan became four. The Hyuuga… are ruled by fear. Fear of their "great and noble" bloodline would be stolen and they would lose their royal prestige amongst the citizens of Konoha. Thus they split themselves in two, one to act as the shield and the other the sword. They thought this method the best option they could come up with and they'd be right. Left unchecked, the Hyuuga would continue on for several more generations to come… until at last there would be born one of the branch house who would not bow their head and accept the cruelty of fate, the disdain of destiny.

That child would end up destroying the Hyuuga clan… much like the one child of the Uchiha not so long ago…

"… Become the Hokage, huh? Impossible." Neiji stood back in a relaxed stance, despite the brutality of Naruto's earlier assault. The blonde was no better than a Inuzuka, fighting more like an enraged beast than a ninja, which admittedly gave Naruto the earlier advantage. However, it was not Naruto who was standing uninjured with shadow clones dispersing around him like smoke bombs.

"I can figure it out with these eyes… Talent is decided at birth. You honestly think you could become Hokage through hard work alone? Only a handful are even considered for Hokage, so wake up and face reality! Those that become Hokage are born to that destiny!" Neiji stated with cold certainty. "There is only one destiny that everyone shares… the inescapable fate known simply as death."

Naruto scoffed loudly at that, standing half-turned in front of the Hyuuga prodigy. "All this talk about fate and destiny… why don't you tell me what's really on your mind, Neiji?" Naruto shot forward, becoming a imperceivable blur, before he delivered a vicious punch to Neiji's face before the Hyuuga could react to his sudden increase of speed.

Neiji flew back several feet but remained standing, a bruise forming on his face but otherwise unhurt by the sudden attack. His mentality though was another thing entirely. The prodigy had not failed to notice the sudden difference between the Naruto before him and the one who had fought against the Inuzuka heir a month prior. He was fast then but he was no Rock Lee. Against Neiji, Naruto might as well be walking for all the difference. Now was another story.

"What's the matter, Neiji?" Naruto's smile was missing its usual childish delight. Canines gleaming, the Uzumaki's grin was downright evil in its intensity. "Don't tell me you're coming down with a headache now!"

Now, with those words… Neiji's world was rocked to its very foundation. The Caged Bird Seal was by no means a well-kept secret in the Hyuuga clan but someone labeled as the dead-last should not even be aware of its existence let alone its properties. There were few things that could break through the icy armor that Neiji surrounded himself in but the damnable seal was easily in the top tier.

"…Hm." Neiji took a deep breath, steadying his nerves, the cold armor whole once more. "Don't make childish presumptions. It will take more than that to affect me."

"Really?" Naruto frowned looking thoughtful for a moment before smiling with a sudden inspiration. "How's this then?" His hands came together in a familiar handseal. "Kage Bushin no Jutsu!"

Neiji scoffed at that, assuming that Naruto would summon forth a small army of clones and he was right, at least partially. From one end of the arena to the other, was a massive sea of orange-clad bodies with sunkissed blonde hair and sapphire eyes. Well over a thousand physical copies of Naruto Uzumaki stood in the battlefield, indeed a well-numbered army but by no means as small as Neiji had assumed. The Branch House Hyuuga prepared for a defense strike against the veritable horde when he found himself surprised yet again by the blonde's tactics.

The clones, acting in complete unison, brought out a kunai and stabbed themselves, thus dispelling and ending the technique. Neiji was at first confused by this and wondered not for the first time if he had ended up with a genin just as insane as that one from Suna when he activated the byakugan and realized the truth. The clouds that were once solid clones were not disappating as they should be and thus a veritable mist of chakra permeated the air around the arena. In essence, Neiji, a member of the prestigious Hyuuga clan whose powerful dojutsu allowed them incredible sight-beyond-sight…

Was fighting blind.

"Where's your Hyuuga pride now, Neiji?" Naruto's voice had a strange echoing effect to it, like his voice was speaking behind a wall of flames and through the clouds of chakra-laded smoke, Neiji could see a faint hint of light. "Destiny is an idiot and Fate…" There was a sudden flair of chakra in the sea of blue clouds. "Fate can kiss my ass!"

Steel shattered, an agonized scream as two opposing chakras met in an explosion of shining light.

Silence…

The chakra clouds faded slowly out of sight to reveal one Naruto Uzumaki standing tall over the prone form of Neiji Hyuuga. The blonde genin's right hand was clenched tightly, visibly trembling while the Hyuuga prodigy's forehead, particularly the area where a cursed seal once laid, was badly burned, smoke still rising in small wafts. Though he did not stir as his blood flowed from the vicious wound, Neiji was still alive, completely unconscious but alive.

Naruto glared down at Neiji, the coldness of his eyes fading back to the familiar warm shade. His fist slowly unclenched and he let out a breath he had unknowingly been holding in. His eyes traveled over the remaining combatants, lingering on a few in particular, before he sought out a particular face in the crowd. A familiar face framed in dark blue tresses. As the crowd erupted into cheers at Hayate's declaration of Naruto's victory, the blonde himself reacted a bit differently. His smile was just a tad sad as he mouthed the words he knew Hinata couldn't hear.

"Only for you, my most precious person…"

"Heh…" Ushio crossed his arms over his chest. "Well I'll be damned… I think that actually did the trick."

Beside him, Sokudo frowned but it was a mischevious one. "I don't know… I don't think that steel pole will be removed that easily…"

"Boys," said Mink with a roll of her eyes. "What do you think, Mana-chan?" She looked over her shoulder up at Mana who, along with the rest of them, sat in the far back of the stadium. If anyone questioned the boys or Mink, they'd say it was a ninja-thing, keeping one's back to one's allies only but the truth of it really couldn't be denied. At roughly fourteen feet in height, Mana towered over everyone present and had to sit in the far back as a result so that everyone else could actually see what was going on in the arena below. She had tried to persuade the others to sit where they wanted but they would not be swayed, and remained firmly at her side.

"I think…" Mana's eyes narrowed and she leaned forward a bit, her shadow easily falling over her friends. "Something's wrong…"

Ushio glanced in the direction the tall kunoichi was looking, his eyes turning feral for a moment. "Well, the Uchiha's match is next… and by the looks of it he takes too much after his sensei…"

"Tardy Kakashi?" snorted Sokudo who, through either his great impatience or greater speed, was never late for anything and thus could not understand why anyone would want to be the last to show up at anything, especially something as important as this. "Think they'll push his match to the end?" Left unsaid was how unlikely it was that Sokudo would be patient enough to wait that long.

"He is the last Uchiha." Mana said.

"The last Uchiha loyal to Konoha at any rate…" sighed Mink. She sat up, suddenly remembering. "Where's—"

"Babysitting." Ushio interrupted. He thought over what he said and winced. "Whether or not he's doing the actual sitting…"

"Don't see why we couldn't bring them here with us," muttered Mana, silently longing for the familiar comfort of aquatic tentacles wrapped in a gentle embrace, the painful ache to return to full-size a dulled tingle at the back of her mind compared to the headache she was currently experiencing.

Ushio glanced up and frowned sympathetically, well familiar with Mana's "little" problem. He suddenly smiled with sudden realization. "You know, with them pushing the Uchiha's match to the end, that means Kodou's will be next."

It was like someone had turned a mood dial in Mana's head for how brilliantly she smiled and the warm blush that adorned her face. Being on a different team, she rarely got to see Kodou in action. When Kankuro raised his arm in forfeit before his match could even begin, Mana's mood did another swift turn as her smile turned upside down as anime tears fell down her face, a near visible field of depressive ki enveloping her massive body. Ushio sweatdropped and decided that it would be better if he kept his mouth shut for the duration of the exam, however long it might be…

Three Hours Later…

"I've died and gone to Hell. There's no other explanation for this!" Sokudo was standing atop his seat and waving an angry fist, and though he was just one of hundreds present currently venting their own impatience, he was the loudest. "I'll die of old age before this match finishes!" Neither of the girls answered him for the both of them had their heads bowed over a romance manga and were well into the story by this point while poor Ushio looked ready to fall asleep at any moment.

Ushio smirked as he saw that Shikamaru's strategy had, at long last, come to fruition. "Well, at least he won right?"

"Ah to hell with this, I forfeit!"

Dead silence. Three glaring eyes fell upon one Ushio Aotsuki who, miraculously, took the better part of valor and decided right then and there that it'd be better if he did not jinx anything else by opening his mouth and inserting his foot into it. 'Still, he had her on the ropes! Why would he just forfeit like that?'

"He knows." Ardiendo stated quietly, loud enough only for his fellow Ji'nei genin to hear him

"No shit he knows!" Kodou growled, his arms crossed angrily over his chest. He did not like having his opponent forefeit like a guppy, no matter how sensible it was, and he certainly did not like having to watch a match that took the better part of several hours! "Damn Nara… high IQ, low motivation the whole lot of them!"

"Which thankfully works to our benefit. He'd only get in the way." Ardiendo shot a glare at Kodou's continued grumblings. "Oh stop your bellyaching, Shark-face. Your match was against Kankuro, a puppet user. Excluding myself, there is no way that match-up could get any more one-sided."

"Yeah, yeah… Speaking of, shouldn't you be heading down there?"

Ardiendo leaned over the railing and glanced down to see that Temari, though extremely red in the face and panting for breath, was still ranting long and loud at the uncaring Shikamaru. The ashen-haired genin quirked an eyebrow at the slight blush on the tired Nara's face and shook his head ruefully. 'Boy's got a thing for women with an attitude… somehow, I'm not as surprised as I should be…'

"I think I'll wait until she's done, thank you."

One long and angry rant later…

Ardiendo regarded his silent opponent with a raised eyebrow, his sword stilled resting in its sheathe upon his back. Shino himself stood weaponless, outside the standard ninja gear, with his hands in the pockets of his coat, his face hidden well behind the folds of his coat. Ardiendo did not doubt that, between checking up on her two other students recovery, Kurenai spent a great deal of time and effort in training Shino for this confrontation.

'Not that it will help him any. I refuse to lose to another bug.' Ardiendo sighed, wishing he could go all out but this tournament was different than the prelims, the wavers were now null and void and he could get in serious trouble killing a Leaf genin, let alone a clan heir, in the middle of their village, no matter the circumstance. Nevermind the flack he'd get from Uzumaki about it.

Ardiendo's eyes widened before narrowing sharply as he leapt back several yards, a hand drawing to the hilt of his sword by sheer instinct as charcoaled bodies of kikkai insects fell like a breadcrumb trail. Scowling to himself, Ardiendo released his grip on his sword and stood tall, his hands at his sides. Shino tilted his head in confusion.

"Why do you not use your sword?" He asked. "Surely it will help alleviate the percentage of your success in this match."

"… You're a wordy little bug aren't you?" Ardiendo chuckled despite his harsh words. "Sorry but there are too many ears listening in for me to say anything more than this: I unsheathe my sword, you, and everyone in the stands behind you, will die." Ardiendo's eyes twitched upwards for a moment, a spark of recognition, before his hands blurred through a multitude of handseals. "Katon: Karyuu Endan!"

Shino's eyebrows reached his hairline as he leapt backward in series of cricket-like leaps as a massive stream of fire shot forth from Ardiendo's pursed lips. The flames coiled tightly, taking shape of a massive oriental dragon, and gave chase after its hopping prey until it soon began to circle the ring as it continued to grow in size until it had the entire arena in its massive coils. The fire-dragon's head reached up high, glaring down with smoldering eyes upon Shino. Letting loose a terrible war cry, the fire-dragon dove down and impacted heavily into the ground as Shino dodged out of the way once again.

Something strange was happening though as, instead of simply dispersing as faint embers, the rest of the fire-dragon's body flew along after its head and, as soon as the tail disappeared and the smoke cleared away, Shino saw that the flames had been intense enough to actually melt a hole in the ground. He frowned beneath the lapels of his coat before his eyes widened with sudden realization as Ardiendo finished a new set of seals, his body aglow with chakra.

"Yōton: Kazangan Fenikkusu!"

The earth trembled in the throws of a massive earthquake before molten magma spewed upwards from the hole, swirling like pure liquid until hardened portions arranged themselves as massive wings and sharpened beak with eyes like a blazing sun on a birdlike face. Even with half of its body still lost beneath the melting crust, the lava-made phoenix was a fearsome sight to behold with its molten wings spread to encompass half the arena, burning the trees on the other side and nearly setting them aflame from its blazing intensity.

"It is said in the western lands, that the early bird gets the worm. I wonder if that applies to kikkai?"

Shino twitched and, were he not rooted to the spot by sheer fear of the massive molten construct, would have shot a glare at the grinning Ardiendo. The insistant buzzing of the kikkai within him reminded him that this feat was no illusion and the giant phoenix made of molten death was more than ready to turn him into an overcrisped genin if given the incentive. He couldn't even send out his kikkai to try and drain Ardiendo's chakra because the air was nearing extreme temperatures and the bugs would likely burst into flames before even reaching the Ji'nei genin. Ardiendo had won the match without so much as damaging more than a mere dozen of his hive.

"… Well played." Shino bowed his head. "I forfeit the match."

Ardiendo nodded and, just like that, the molten phoenix screeched one last cry before pulling its wings tightly to its chest and disappearing down into the lava hole from whence it came. Hayate remained where he was, up and as far back as he could while still being separate from the audience and maintaining a referee-styled role towards the finals. His coughs were made a bit worse thanks to the smoke and though he was a tad bitter about it, he supposed Ardiendo's over-the-top win made things a bit easier for them to wait for Sasuke to show up.

Though he had no idea how the young genin had managed it, Hayate knew that Ardiendo had managed to burn his way straight through to one of the lava-veins that was near the surface of Konoha, specifically the one that ran quite close to the hotsprings. The Land of Fire, while having the largest forests of the Elemental Nations, Land of Wood notwithstanding, was called that for a reason and that reason was the molten hotspots that decorated its territories.

So, provided no smart-aleck suggested a heavy duty combination of water and ice jutsu, they could wait however was necessary for Sasuke to show up on the excuse of waiting for the magma to cool enough to not provide a potential danger to the combatants.

"Winner—cough!—Ardiendo Rugido!"

'Wait for it…'

"HOORAY FOR ARDI-KUN! HOORAY! HOORAY!"

'And we have the girlfriend's overexuberant celebration…' Sokudo sighed and leaned back in his chair. 'She's almost as bad as Ami…' He glanced over and blinked in surprise. 'Where the heck did she get time to make a banner? Correction, where was she hiding it?'

"She's exuberant as ever I see," muttered a sullen Kodou.

"You're just jealous that Mana couldn't do the same for you." Ardiendo quipped.

"The hell that I am! And who the hell do you think you are using such a powerful technique like that?" growled Kodou. "Talk about hypocrisy!"

"Well, I had a little help." Ardiendo shrugged, his head tilting slightly to the left. Kodou's anger froze and he glanced out the corner of his eye. There, on the far side of the stadium, he noted three familiar, and technically unofficial, members of Ardiendo's Team Zwei with three others accompanying them. The tallest and oldest of the trio, but by no means the most mature, took notice of Kodou's suddenly incredulous stare and waved cheerfully, his other hand busy holding the bowl of fresh popcorn away from the other two who kept trying to steal it when they thought he wasn't looking.

"The hell?" Kodou shook his head. "Never mind…" His shoulders stiffened and he shot a glance at Gaara. "If they're here now, then does that mean…?"

"Yeah…" Ardiendo's eyes narrowed as a whirlwind of leaves appeared in the center of the arena. Once the miniature tornado died down, there were two well-known ninjas standing on the battleground. The elder was the (in)famous "Copycat" Kakashi Hatake. The other was the rookie-of-the-year, the prime genin of his generation and the "last" of a prestigious but traitorous bloodline.

"Sasuke Uchiha's finally arrived."

Lost in the Desert Sands

TRANSLATIONS:

Katon: Karyuu Endan: Fire Style/Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet

Yōton: Kazangan Fenikkusu: Magma Style/Release: Volcanic Phoenix