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Sasuke's POV (Contestant Section of Iron Arena - Land of Iron)
It was a shame Sasuke had to wait for his turn. Sasuke was confident Gaara would have proved a difficult opponent, perfect for his goal of building infamy. Naruto was a bit more of a toss-up, he hadn't seemed to show everything he had in store. But also used the little he had shown to defeat some solid opponents.
Considering the lack of challenges either had received, it was for the best that he got to witness this. They would struggle and clash in what was sure to be a show-stopper. In the process, they would expose their entire kit. Sasuke felt slightly ashamed, but it was less than honorable. But it was a small cost to ensure his plan went smoothly.
It took a lot of work for him to state who would win. Gaara seemed to be the betting favorite, it was easy to see why. From his research into him, Sasuke discovered a mission record that was nothing less than shocking from a Genin. Twenty-two C-Ranks, Fourteen B-Ranks, and an A-Rank on record. Two of the B-Rank and the A-Rank were completed solo.
It painted a grim picture of a monster who shouldn't have been sent to the exams. A familiar practice from Sasuke's experience. History had shown that it was not uncommon for one of the villages to send an "overqualified" Genin to the Chunin Exam. They would dominate and gain their village quite the boon. It seemed to Sasuke the Kazekage had made a plan to do so.
Could Sasuke truly see Naruto Uzumaki stand before such a man? Naruto wasn't someone he knew well. From what he heard, he was a goofy, unreliable shinobi. These exams were somewhat actual, but they had clearly estimated him. Naruto had made the work of Tenten, Kurotsuchi, and Samui easy. While Sasuke bet he or Gaara could do so, it suggested Naruto was a powerful shinobi.
He certainly seemed confident, standing unflinchingly toward a wave of death. Indeed, the idiot didn't think he could block or deflect such. It must've weighed literally tons. Sasuke knew he must avoid such a thing, so why did Naruto face it?
Sasuke sensed Naruto was similar to him. Not in personality, not entirely anyway. But the same is true of the sense of drive, he sensed it in the blonde. Naruto would go as far as he would in his goals. But would it be enough?
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Naruto's POV (Courtyard of Iron Arena - Land of Iron)
Naruto breathed in deeply as death approached. The sand made a shockingly loud sound as the small pellets surged forward and consumed anything in front of it. He lowered his center of balance and sheathed Riptide as if not planning to attack but draw his blade. His left hand was in a hand sign, and his right clutched to the blade at his back. He allowed chakra to flow wildly. The wave was mere inches away, even with considerable speed, Naruto was sure he could not dodge it. It didn't matter, though, he was ready now. Time to show one of his new tricks, a technique he created using all his teachers' aid.
Naruto whispered as he initiated the technique. "Draw of the Maelstrom: Slicing Storm." He drew Riptide quickly, and as he did, the wind spun around the blade as if a twister had formed. As he slashed, the storm was unleashed. With a boom, countless wind blades surrounding a much larger one flew forward into the wave. Despite the speed and mass of the sand, it offered little resistance to the attack. Naruto watched pridefully as the cutting force and power punched through the wave, splitting it into two parts. It failed to reach Gaara, who smiled on the other side of the collapsing wave, the split allowing the two to eye each other. The sand crashed around the two. Now, the center of the arena had become a large ring of sand surrounding the two. "You'll have to do better than that, Gaara," Naruto said with a smile, excited to finally begin this long-awaited fight. "This human won't be going down easy!"
Gaara chuckled wildly. "Anything less would be disappointing, brother."
There was tense silence in the arena as the crowd was blown away by the opening move. For most of it, Gaara's massive sand wave was one of the most impressive attacks seen in the exam. As remarkable as Sasuke or Fuu had been, they had yet to produce an attack entirely on this level. Yet it had been matched and wholly overpowered by Naruto's attack. It made one thing inherently clear to the crowd. This battle would be on another level that was well beyond what could be expected from mere Genin.
There was a tense moment between Naruto and Gaara as they stared. Naruto could feel the bloodlust exuding from Gaara. It was clear Gaara was not intimidated or overly impressed, he seemed to have expected Naruto to be able to do what he had done. Gaara smirked as the sand around him and leftovers from his attacks rose into pillars of moving, thriving sand.
"I'm thankful humanity has not dragged you down to their pathetic level," Gaara remarked with a smirk. "Had that technique stalled you for a single second I would've been disappointed. You wouldn't want that…"
Naruto frowned at this. "Why does it matter if I'm strong? Shouldn't I be inherently worth it as a jinchuriki? You're always talking about how "superior" we are." Truly, Naruto could understand why Gaara would hate "humans," but why did he seem so focused on strength? Why? If he wanted to unite them, why did he seem so prepared to strike him down if he was "disappointing"?
"Don't be naive now, brother." Gaara replied with a frown, as if he was dealing with a rebellious younger sibling who needed chastising, "You know more than anyone what the inherent need for power is. Jinchuriki were created for that sole purpose, power is our birthright, our reason. Without it we can never escape this cycle of pain created by our forefathers nor rise to our true glory. To be jinchuriki is the meaning of power. What these villages use to scare off each other… We can change the world… a world where the powerful rule over the weak. A weak jinchuriki is a paradox, unnatural, and oh-so disappointing. And I'll warn you…"
Naruto flinched as he ducked and dived to his right. This narrowly allowed him to avoid several sharpened strands of sand sent to run him through. He jumped into the air to prevent a small wave that crashed where he had landed. Naruto looked into Gaara's smiling face as he watched the ground around Gaara writhe as his sand whipped itself into a frenzy. Naruto prepared to unleash a counter, but his and Gaara's focus was broken as a loud and dismal roar sounded from the audience. Naruto and Gaara both whipped their heads and lowered focus as nearly all of the civilian audience let their voices be heard. Though each said something different, the message was clear:
"Finally, these monsters are fighting each other. It's unfair to have poor humans fighting those beasts!"
"Kill each other, scum!"
"Kill them both!"
"Death to jinchuriki!"
Naruto landed with a grim frown. He had been confident his impressive performance would've won some of them over. While the shinobi were more neutral, the crowd only saw it as harmful. He supposed a strong monster was worse than a normal one.
"Do you see, brother!" Gaara roared happily. Naruto whipped back to Gaara and used Riptide to block several small globs of sand fired at absurd speeds. The power of which made Naruto slide back. Naruto growled as he charged toward Gaara, who merely cackled in response as he sent several streams of sand barreling toward the blonde. "They hate us! Wish us nothing but suffering! Yet you wish to coexist!"
Naruto did not flinch as he met the streams of sand head-on. He leaped forward as he channeled chakra and readied Riptide. "Uzumaki Style: Seafoam Slashes!" While flying through the air, Naruto slashed the sand streams into fragments. However, before Naruto could draw close enough to attack, he was suddenly stopped in mid-air.
"Your naivety is almost admirable." Gaara stated as Naruto realized his predicament. Even dispersed and in mid-air, the sand could be controlled, and he managed to snag each of his limbs. Holding him up in the air. "You intend to hold back? Do you intend to side with those who hate you? You, Naruto Uzumaki, may just be a fool. I will say this only once. Show me everything, and you may yet live. Though if you refuse…" A large river of sand burst from the ground in front of Gaara. It raced forward towards the held up Naruto. "You may enjoy death."
The sand trampled the held Naruto, before it could fully even settle, it was suddenly condensed into an orb with a crunching of bone and a poof of smoke.
Naruto suddenly burst from the ground below, channeling chakra into Riptide as he attempted a surprise attack from behind Gaara. However impressively quickly a wall of sand rose shifting as it attempted to block the slash. His chakra made a grating sound as he attempted to use chakra surge to cut through it. He had been moving at the highest speed he could in base, and yet Gaara had reacted with ease…
"A mere misdirect? Shadow Clones and slashes from a toothpick? Is this all you have to offer? Perhaps Fuu would be a better ally." Gaara remarked. "I know you can do better, stop making me wait."
"One… thing… I can't stand… cocky bastards… who think they're better than people." Naruto growled. "Luckily, this mere misdirect worked."
"Oh?" Gaara asked with a smile. "Something to show me?"
"Yeah, I can use two kinds of clones, ya know? Boom!" Naruto suddenly exploded, kicking up sand and dust into the air and shaking the arena. Gaara's wall had become somewhat melted into dirty glass, but with last-minute reinforcing from more sand, it had managed to hold out.
Gaara chuckled playfully as he stared at Naruto. "Impressive technique, but that won't be enou-"
"Smashing of the Waves!"
"Smashing of the Waves!"
Suddenly, two Narutos appeared, both disguised as stones left on the ground. Both with glowing Riptides raced forward and slashed in unison from both sides of Gaara. The blades boomed as they managed to cave in the walls slightly. The walls seemed to bubble before they erupted into sand spikes destroying both clones.
"Patheti—" Gaara stopped and looked back to Naruto. During the instant he had defended himself from the last attack, Naruto had been busy. Where one Naruto had stood now, there was an army.
"You said we're playing for keeps, right? Naruto Wall of Steel!" The clones taunted before they all suddenly launched kunai. A literal wall of metal raced toward Gaara as he laughed.
"Better but still pathetic!" Gaara called a massive wall and caught each kunai with ease. "Learn a new trick, brother!" He taunted as the wall became an enormous fort between Gaara and the army of blondes. It was revealed each kunai had an active exploding tag. Gaara laughed as they were about to ignite.
Just as Naruto hoped. His clones did not hesitate as they raced forward, their chakra flowing through Riptide. Each stopped as they stabbed Riptide into the ground before Gaara's defenses. "Hey, brother!" They sounded off, "Tricked you again! Uzumaki Style: Piercing Geyser!" The ground surface began to crack in thin lines that flowed towards Gaara's position.
"Bring it on, Uzumaki! Quantity is not quality! You can't hope to beat my defenses!" Gaara rebuked as his fortress continued to grow.
"That's why I gotta get unpredictable!" Naruto roared. As he finished, the ground beneath Gaara began to glow blue, swell up, and crack. Suddenly, sand burst from the ground, raising Gaara into the air. This was a massive plane of condensed sand seemingly hidden beneath. The clones of Naruto all froze as their combined attack was unable to drill through the previously submerged sand. There simply was much too much sand for the attack to do so. It seemed Gaara had hidden sand beneath him, unfortunately allowing him to block the surprise attack with ease.
"You cling to your humanity. Convincing yourself with morality is worth the suffering we go through. Blindly, you try to convince yourself we can achieve peace and understanding with humans. But you don't realize how deep their hatred is. The only way they will ever treat us fairly is once we crush them beneath our feet. We must use the power and relationships we have been given to improve this world. We must crush them! Only then can we, jinchuriki, ever find peace! If you believe my way is wrong, don't give me a passionate speech! Show me it, prove me wrong, Naruto Uzumaki! Show me the power of humanity!" Gaara ranted as he hovered over Naruto on his massive floating platform of sand.
"Fine." Naruto said as he fell toward Gaara. Gaara flinched as he turned and noticed Naruto so close, Riptide shining brilliantly mere moments from Naruto using it. "Have it your way! Uzumaki Style: Slash of the Riptide!" A horizontal line of chakra fired towards Gaara. Sand formed a dome around him just before the attack closed, causing a small explosion that created a smokescreen at the source of the impact. Naruto fell toward the ground all the while, summoning several clones to use as steps to slow his descent. He stared up at the smoke, wondering if that one had stuck. It had nearly been enough before, surely now that he was stronger it had hurt h-
"Cute." Gaara said as the smoke cleared. His skin appeared to have a thin cut on it. Clearly, Naruto's attack had almost managed to pierce the haste defenses. But Naruto knew it was merely his armor on which he had landed a glancing blow. "You assumed that attack was strong enough to pierce my defenses. That is a fair assumption, but make no mistake. That first time we met, you only came close due to me being so excited. Perhaps you need to die after all? IS THAT WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO MAKE YOU SEE THE TRUTH?!"
Naruto growled at that furiously. He needed to take it up a level…