4.Tournament of Survival- 4 months

{Sakura: "I love you, Naruto." - Around the time of Five Kage Summit}

A girl opened her eyes and checked her surroundings. On seeing the familiar face, leaning against the wall, she raised a brow, "I am pretty sure that I died or was that Genjutsu?" She asked as she could still remember her head floating in the air and looking at the moon.

"Well, it was Genjutsu, I just wanted to see how you will react when you actually die, Actions speak louder than words," He said

"I see" 

There was a silence that stretched for an uncomfortably long time, and after who knows how long, she said, "So, what now?"

"What ?"

"Why did you not kill me?"

"Why would I kill you?"

"Coz... I tried to kill you?"

"You think one should kill others if one aimed for your life?"

"Yes" She unhesitatingly said

"Well, ya, that should be done" He really can't argue with that as he would have done the same when he was young.

"Then why you didn't do that?"

"I don't feel like it, I guess, it was a whim to leave you alive then"

"I don't think you will survive if I fire a point-blank Piercing Great Breakthrough at you now"

"Your wrists are still broken"

"Why do you assume that I can't seal-lessly do it" She quipped back.

"Well, be my guest then"

Just as he said that he ducked and the area above his head which was a wall, now had a thumb-sized hole in it.

"Woah, Woah, calm down now, Shouldn't you be grateful to me as I showed mercy" He tried to stabilize the situation while moving along the wall of the cave-like structure they were in.

"I never asked you to leave me alive, only idiots do such idiotish things," She said like a child and fired another beam of compressed air.

"Well, we were having just a spar you know, I don't know when it turned to a deathmatch," He said while dodging another blow.

After hearing that she paused and remembered how they started fighting in the first place.

"Right... Anyway, how did you not die when I actually tried to kill you stealthily."

"I just have good instincts, I guess" He sheepishly said while rubbing his head, this seemed like an excuse to the little girl, but she accepted that for now, she didn't believe that was the truth.

"So, what now?"

"Well, that depends on you as I have bandaged both your feet, but you have to walk or run by managing the pain till the exam ends," He said.

"I didn't know that you were an Earth user till the last moment." She nodded and changed the topic to which he just hummed.

She got up with her bandaged feet still on the ground, and she didn't even wince at that, other than the quality of shinobi, this program had many opportunities for a child to increase their pain tolerance and one example is this.

"Where are we?" 

"Underground"

"You won't crumble the ceiling and bury me alive right?" She made a morbid joke but seeing that his expression didn't change, she started moulding her chakra.

If she was going down, then, she may as well bring him down.

He smiled and the Tension broke, "If I wanted to kill you, believe me you won't be standing here"

Well, that was not what one said to break the tension but it did the work.

He put his hand on the wall before pausing, "Why don't you break the ceiling with your deadly jutsu followed by an AOE jutsu? We are not that under the ground, so it should work, it would take too much amount of chakra to change the layout to reach the surface."

She nodded and just did that, the ceiling started crumbling before getting blown away. They started walking on the surface side by side in silence.

"Now, I think about it, tell me the real reason why you were referring to me as 'oni-chan' as you don't really seem that insane." He asked

"I saw an orange book and it had a female refer to male as that for some reason, it intrigued me, so I got the idea from that," She said 

Now, No.13 was not generally curious about the shenanigans of kids his age, but this statement seems to have made him remember an orange-coloured book from his 'meta-knowledge' or 'anime-only to-do list'

"I think it was about tactics or something," she said with a pondering expression.

"I see"

Suddenly they both jumped and a second later ground was covered in ice.

Yes, that guy from the beginning was the one setting up this ambush.

"Well, only 2 hours are left till the end of the exam, I can only find you two after searching for the last 3 hours," He said while weaving some hand signs and sending icicles towards them.

"Well, let's meet again if you survive that is," The only girl present said and disappeared in the air.

"Damn it, Just die already so I can go after that girl," He said but icicles pierced a log instead of him.

He looked around but found no signs of his prey. It was like he never was there similar to the girl.

"Wait, Am I hallucinating?" Maybe, they really were his figment of imagination.

The last 2 hours were again him finding nobody after searching 3 times across the forest.

"They must have found a good hole to hide their sorry asses" Ice Boy angrily muttered.

When the exam ended, Ice-boy was shocked to see only the other two present with him and that also who he encountered two hours before.

"Where are the others?" He asked the instructor present.

"Everyone who survived is here already," He said with a neutral tone

This did get some reactions from the ice-boy but he just kept his thoughts to himself.

"Okay, now take out your plaques for rank tallying," the Instructor said and they complied.

The Ice-Boy was the first one to do so and showed 23 Plaques to him.

The Only Girl Present was next and showed an astounding 51 Plaques!

It seems that she got the plaques of more than half the number of players by herself.

The last was Our one and only No.13 who got 22 Plaques. It seems 4 Plaques have been unaccounted for... Now, the management either would have to change the colour of the Plaques or use any other object for another batch or would have to find the other 4 by themselves in this forest.

"Everyone!, Round two will take place after every other batch is done with their round one, so around 4 months, You will be given points accordingly for your performance in this round, Also, A rank jutsus are available for use, I wish you Good luck," He said and promptly disappeared which was followed by other two leaving the ice-boy alone who wanted to ask something.

Now, No.13 was pondering what to do for the next 4 months, In the last 6 months after the date of the tournament was announced, he focused completely on his physical conditioning as not only would it make his chakra-enhanced hits harder, but also increase his stamina and chakra reserves.

He also did some theoretical stuff of Genjutsu and Fuinjutsu, the latter he picked up as well in the last half a year, but it is complicated even for likes of him.

This guy is one who has done some crazy stuff and his level of learning things is ridiculous even in this world, so his saying that it is complicated just makes one ponder how hard the field is if one doesn't have talent.

Now, talking about A ranks, those are the peaks of ninjutsu a ninja can achieve. Obviously, we are not talking about Forbidden Jutsus or S ranks which are given 'Forbidden' Title for a reason. A Jutsu is given an A-rank by taking into account the Difficulty of learning that jutsu along with the amount of chakra it possesses.

There were some ninjutsu there that could even No.13 use with his barely Chunin-level reserves. 

When reaching the A rank section, he skimmed through everything and only two things interested him, One was Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu and the other was a scroll on Mindscape.

Now, learning Former was easy for him as making tens of Copies of projectiles was possible for him with his Chakra reserves, however after 50, his Chakra reserves didn't agree with him on that endeavour.

Moving on, Accessing Mindscape was something, he was looking forward to as it has the potential to rival the infamous Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu in Training efficiency and that without having the unholy amount of Chakra the latter has requirements.

He has already tried Meditation to access it previously but he has failed on multiple occasions, Meditation is not something new to him, he has done various types of it in his previous life.

After reading the scroll he realized that the first step of being calm is the most difficult step, it also involves understanding oneself at a deeper level.

He remembered something about Naruto encountering his dark desires during the time He learned Sage mode... or was it when he fought Kurama?

Either way, it seems that this is not bullshit, but rather has some level of truth in it. Anyway, other methods to access his via Yamanaka's jutsu but then changing one's mindscape will be difficult via that method.

Either way, he did follow that method as he hasn't confronted his mind and some desires in a long while, more like not had a self-introspection of his emotional or mental state for a long time, so it was like killing two ninjas with one kunai.

It took him one month to just do this step but this allowed him to finally enter the mindscape. His mindscape had the background of the room of his previous life. It was completely dark and gloomy, but he was the type of person who preferred Dark mode over Light mode in most of his devices.

He went towards the door and opened it and found that, unlike his previous life, outside were stars, yes it was a setting of space with occasional shooting stars going by it. It was ethereal.

He put his foot out but realized that there was no invisible ground for him to walk upon. So he tried to access his chakra but realized that this was not the real world but inside his mind.

He recalled that using chakra inside the mindscape is neigh-impossible as you would have to replicate the real world into your mindscape, things like copying how chakra interacts in the real world in your mindscape which is not an easy task, if it is doable that is.

So, instead of doing that, he started with the basics of Altering Mindscape he read in that scroll. Now, 95 per cent of ninjas can't access their mindscape and one per cent comes from mostly Yamanakas who also can't change it much due to the level of difficulty of the task. 

On the level of Mindscape, one can say that Yamanakas are more like thieves or lock-pickers who can enter other's mindscapes but changing one's mindscape could be said to be the work of a builder, not a thief.

Anyway, the next 3 months passed with him trying to change subtle things in his mindscape and the progress was not really satisfactory for him.

He realized that the task of just reaching the level he wanted in Mindscape manipulation would take a few years, so he kept that task on the back burner, still giving 30 per cent of his available time.

There is a reason only Yamanakas could do such things and more over higher-ups of that clan.

The only positive thing was that his chakra seemed to increase a bit whenever he did the task of changing his mindscape or more like getting a level of control over it.

At least it was significantly more than what he gains from Physical Conditioning these days.

One of the other pet projects he was doing at this point was researching Shadow clone jutsu, the part where one splits their consciousness. If he can achieve that, then one part can work on his Mindscape manipulation and the other can do things outside the body.

He actually had to go to great lengths to make ninjas monitor him to make them believe that He had given up on what he was doing or more like covering his tracks by taking random scrolls and whatnot. He was able to do his Mindscape manipulation training when he went to sleep, to not give additional information to Higher-ups of this program.

Anyway, the last batch has finally completed their tests and all the people who have qualified are standing, waiting for an instructor to make their appearance. We were given a period of a week as grace period.

On a quick count, No.13 determined that there were around 2000 Kids Present.

"The Second Round will be a Team-Based Battle, It's the same as the first round but this time you have to work with your team. Every team will be given a Plaque, Your Goal is to get the Plaque of a target team you will be given in the beginning. Not only would you have to survive till the exam ends, but it will also take place for 7 days straight. Your teammates would be the surviving members of your group from round 1. We will start with the exams first thing in the dawn tomorrow, so prepare accordingly."

'He never said that our team-mates need to be alive at the end of the exam, not only that, each team will have a different number of group members, also not considering that most of them would be hostile with each other. I wonder if there are any teams like ours with only 3 people. It's a good thing that Ice-guy doesn't know that I was the one who sent so many explosion tags on him' His thoughts were interrupted by somebody suddenly hugging him.

"It seems we are a team Senpai," a voice said that in a low tone directly in his ear. 

No.13 Shivered at that sudden jump, he had to consciously stop himself from taking out his kunai.

"I guess, also why are you now calling me 'Senpai' " He asked turning back and looking at her from above his shoulder.

"Cause you defeated me," She said in a tone which said that was obvious.

'Kids are so weird' That was the only thought No.13 had who rolled his eyes.

"Well, let's find that ice guy and form some type of plan to deal with other teams tomorrow" No.13 said and started looking around to find the black-haired ice boy.

It didn't take long to find him, he was sucking on a popsicle, upon seeing them, he said "You!"

"Yes?"

A lot of expressions could be seen on Ice-Guy's face which soon got replaced by forced calmness.

"I see, you have decided that you can't win without me, so you came for my cooperation, right?" An understanding look and a subtle smug look could be seen on that guy's face.

'How Over-confident' No.13 rolled his eyes.

"Should we just kill him, things would be so much easier than?" The girl beside him said with a look, her eyes Shining. That might have moved the hearts of many adults. It almost moved No.13.

"No," He said and chopped on her head making her lose focus and dispel that cosmetic genjutsu.

"Oh, I don't know how you got so many plaques in the round one, But I don't think you will be able to kill me, but as they say you can dream." He said while running his hand through his hair. 

'This kid really had a narcissistic side' No.13 pondered how to deal with the situation.

But in the next second, there was a kunai at the ice guy's throat from behind.

"Would you fucking shut up? It's not funny, clown" The stealth girl appeared behind him and said that in a low tone with an emotionless voice contrary to how she was when talking to No.13.

Even, No.13 didn't notice when she reached there, let alone the ice guy who audibly gulped, he realized that he would have already died if she wanted to.

'Well, kids are said to have short tempers, No wonder parents don't allow kids to touch things like knives or something in my previous world, I bet its main reason could be that they might actually kill somebody other than the fact that they can harm themselves, lol' No.13 liked the outcome of this as it was convenient.

"Let's have our meeting at a more secluded space" No.13 suggested and the latter two complied.

"So, what's our plan?" She asked

"How about we give a general overview of our abilities so that we will be able to work a bit efficiently, let me start by myself, I am referred to as No.13, My skillset lies in Earth Release, trap making and ambush, I also know a one or two thing about medical ninjutsu but just the basics," No.13 said with a calm look on his face.

"Me, I am next" She raised her hand like an enthusiastic child... which she was, her change in temperament wasn't welcomed by the ice guy as he was still terrified by the earlier display and seeing that her mood could change so easily, she could kill him on a whim.

"Sure, Go ahead"

"My speciality lies in assassination and tracking, I could boast that only one person has survived my serious assassination attempt, I also can do Wind Release Jutsus. You can call me S-chan" This introduction freaked out Ice Guy as he still remembers that she had more than 50 Plaques, 'Wait, did she murder all of them without even them knowing about it' He was now shivering, One won't like their life on a leash of a crazy person.

"It's your turn" He was hooked out of his ponderings, "You can Refer to me as Delta... My speciality lies in my Ice-release Kekkei Genkai" He said while internally resolving himself 'I just have to survive these exams, after that, I will be 20 feet away from her'

"Well, let's talk about our strategy"

***

Author here

How was the chapter?

Did you like the interaction between characters in this chapter?

It is a bit short compared to the last one, but I wanted to upload this story as soon as possible which I will do just after writing this author note.

Lol, I want to see whether the decision for me to mass upload at once will pay off or not... Either way, the idea is not that bad and I believe that I am not a bad writer in my humble opinion.

Will see when people will say their honest opinions, but a guy can dream till then, Right?

I have double-checked the Grammer for all the chapters, SO all the fault will be on Gram*arly, lol.

How did you like my idea of Mindscape development?

I did some research and realized that Dark Naruto was everything we assumed Naruto should have been... I even read that Naruto and Sasuke share a similarity in that regard, as Sasuke wanted to be left alone like the childhood part of Naruto but he didn't due to having the support of his friends and teachers during the latter half of his life. I think that is also the reason he wanted to bring back Sasuke as he saw himself or more like a possibility of what he would have done. Well, these are not my observations but I agree with it, I found it on Reddit... The place for all knowledgeable people.

Anyway, Do give me some power stones and comments to motivate me to write the next chapter... Also, Some Reviews will be appreciated along with how I can improve my story and writing style.

Also, Fun-fact - We weren't able to see the dark side of Guy due to Kisame appearing, What do you think that side of Guy would be?

Word Count:- 3093(Including only the story)