Chapter 23: Naruto vs Neji

My apologies for the oversight. Let me correct that for you:

I ended up training with my father for the next month. It was the day before the final competition, and I was walking around in the village when I saw Shikamaru enter somewhere. I decided to follow him when I saw him talking to his dad.

I ran up to him and said, "Hey, Shikamaru!" Shikamaru turned his attention to me as he said, "Oh hey, Hinoka, what are you doing here?"

Hinoka: "I was just tired of being in the Hyuga compound for so long, so I decided to walk around the village for a bit. What about you?"

Shikamaru: "I have to babysit my dad."

I chuckled hearing that as we talked for a bit before I returned home. I was laying in bed thinking, 'From my knowledge, Gaara was meant to go on a rampage while fighting Sasuke. Will that still happen even though I redid his seal?' before I dozed off.

It was finally the day of the final round. And I made my way to the stadium. Hinata told me she was meeting up with Kiba, so I went ahead of her. As we were all standing in the arena, Sasuke and Naruto weren't here yet. Suddenly, Naruto flew in through the door.

Naruto: "Guys! Run! You won't believe this, but there's a huge herd of stampeding bulls heading this way!"

Shikamaru: "What? Yeah, you're right, I don't believe it."

Naruto: "What? I'm serious! There must be a million of them heading this way! Huh… where's Sasuke?"

Hinoka: "He's not here yet."

As we all stood there, the crowd cheered as the Hokage got up and said, "Welcome all! And our deepest thanks for coming here to the village hidden in the leaves for this year's Chunin Selection. We have come to the final competition between the 8 candidates who made it through the preliminaries. We ask that no one leaves until all the matches have been completed. Now, everyone enjoy!"

Examiner: "The terrain is different, but the rule is that there are no rules, the same as the preliminaries. The matches will continue until one or the other dies or acknowledges defeat. However, if I judge that it has been settled, I'll stop the match there. No arguments permitted. Understood? So, the first match is Naruto Uzumaki. Neji Hyuga. Just those two remain and the rest of you can go to the waiting room."

Soon after, the match began. Naruto made the first move. He threw a few kunai blades at Neji, and as Neji blocked them all, Naruto ran at him face first. Naruto went for a punch, but as I expected, Neji casually moved to the side with no effort and dodged the hit.

Naruto spun around and went at Neji again. He threw a series of punches at Neji, and Neji blocked every single one of them with ease. Neji, after blocking Naruto's barrage of hits, narrowed his eyes and started to throw his punches. He hit Naruto, and Naruto rolled backwards and winced before standing up, as if he wasn't just hit.

He then created four clones, and they all stood next to him. Naruto reached into his weapon pouch and grabbed a kunai, and his clones did the same. Four of the clones ran at Neji head-on. Neji quickly pushed all of them to the side. And just as we thought that one of the Narutos had managed to knee Neji in the chin, Neji jumped back and landed on his feet gracefully.

The Narutos charged at Neji again, attacking with all their might. However, Neji leaped into the air and spun around, easily hitting two of the Narutos, causing them to vanish in a cloud of smoke. The remainder of the clones ran at Neji from behind, and just as easily as he beat the other clones, Neji hit the clones directly in their chest and sent them flying. They vanished.

Naruto made more shadow clones than he did the first time. All his Shadow Clones charged straight for Neji. But Neji easily countered and pushed past Naruto's Shadow Clones before he hit one of Naruto's chakra points. One by one all the clones disappeared.

Naruto coughed up blood. His body was trembling under the tips of Neji's fingers. I saw a grin on Naruto's face as he turned into a puff of smoke. Just then two Narutos attacked Neji from the back. Neji was dumbstruck, and he spun around. The two clones went in for a punch, and as soon as one of them landed a hit on Neji, some mysterious force threw them both back. I watched carefully as Neji stopped spinning around. Despite being thrown back, Naruto stood up and quickly made six clones of himself and surrounded Neji from all sides. As they did before, all the clones rushed in at once ready to attack. However, it proved to be futile as Neji once again blew them all away.

Naruto made his way off the ground and faced Neji once more. Neji took his fighting stance and prepared to attack. Neji ran at Naruto and used The Gentle Fist Art 8 Trigrams 64 Palms, sending Naruto flying back. The examiner went closer to Naruto as he said, "Looks like it's over."

Neji: "I have now struck all 64 of your chakra points. You're lucky to still be breathing. Well, must be frustrating to realize how hopeless it all was, this little dream of yours. You thought you could succeed through hard work alone. That's only an illusion."

Naruto started to get up to everyone's disbelief. As they both talked, Neji removed his headband revealing his curse mark. After a while, Neji put his headband back and activated his Byakugan again before he hit Naruto in the stomach, sending him flying back. Naruto stood up again, and they talked again when an orange chakra started swirling around Naruto. It finally stopped as it settled on Naruto. Naruto started moving even faster than he did before as he threw shurikens at Neji who blocks it and also attacks Naruto with shurikens, but Naruto disappeared.

They both fought using their kunais when Naruto charged at Neji and as their kunais made contact, they made craters in the floor. There was smoke and out of one of the craters, Neji came out and walked towards the other one to see Naruto knocked out in it. Suddenly, Naruto appeared from the ground and gave Neji an uppercut sending him flying back, leaving him unable to move. Naruto walked over to Neji and talked to him as the examiner declared Naruto the winner.