"So," Naruto said. "A sand on sand battle is unlikely to get us anywhere, because I can already tell that your sand is going to be too hard to control for me."
"Likewise," Gaara admitted. "The sand we are...contesting is a different matter."
Grinning, Naruto unsealed Kubikiribocho. "Luckily, I'm not limited to sand."
Darting in with the sword resulted in Gaara's sand jumping up to block his approach. A quick dart to the side caused more sand to appear there, but not in the other direction, which was a good trick. It wasn't quite fast enough to keep Naruto out though, and he slipped into the forming wall. More sand lashed out at him there, and being closer to Gaara made it fast enough to require retreating a bit.
"That...is an insane ability," Naruto said. "There's no way you were watching me, so either you're a powerful sensor or it really is purely automatic." Given that it looked like Gaara was shocked at where Naruto had made it to in such a short time, it was likely the latter.
Instead of answering, a pulse of chakra from Gaara resulted in the remaining bits of sand wall firing sand shuriken out at Naruto. Those were easily blocked with Kubikiribocho, but not being able to get in close enough to use the sword made it a bit useless. Backing away, he sealed it away again and considered his options. The best one was probably lots of water, and possibly some fire and ice. Of course, the fact that Gaara was currently creating sand clones of a sort needed to be taken into account as well.
Six sand paperwork-style clones were trivial to create, four moving to engage with Gaara's two less capable clones and two heading to try to engage with Gaara directly. Naruto then started preparing a larger-scale water jutsu. It would keep his own sand clones from reforming when they took damage, but he wasn't dependent on sand for everything either. Though that sand-eye jutsu that Gaara seemed to be using again, this time to see past his automatic sand barrier, looked incredibly useful and with any luck Shukaku would be willing to help recreate it later.
Doing all of this without duplicating what was done to remove Shukaku was annoying, because all the best plans were already used then.
A wave of water soaked the area around Gaara, taking his two sand clones out at the same time, but some of his sand formed a flood wall of sorts to keep the water from reaching all of his sand. That was okay though, because Naruto's plan didn't require washing the sand away yet. No, getting the water into place was needed to form a dome of ice mirrors, which was what happened a moment later. Naruto unsealed and started flowing lightning chakra through a tanto as he stepped into the back of one of the mirrors, appearing in the rest a moment later.
The sand around Gaara obviously recognized the danger, springing up into a complete dome before Naruto started moving. But the chakra in the tanto easily made large gashes in the dome, causing entire sections to crumble as it negated Gaara's chakra temporarily. After a few seconds the sand dome was essentially gone and the strikes were hitting Gaara himself...and the sand armor he was apparently covering himself with. That appeared to be far more resilient to disruption, though needing to continuously disrupt the sand dome as it tried to reform wasn't helping.
After a couple minutes of not getting anywhere with successfully harming Gaara, Naruto backed off and exited the ice mirrors. That obviously wasn't working, so a more complete form of taking the sand out of the picture was going to be needed. The tanto was sealed away and a dozen standard paperwork clones were created. They spread out around the outer edge of the arena, first manipulating the earth to make a seal of sorts around the edge of the arena and then generating water.
Lots of water.
Gaara didn't seem to notice at first, but it was obvious when he did. He looked panicked, and created a platform of sand underneath him. That took to the air, but it was shaky and obviously used a lot of his chakra to pull off. So Naruto started pelting it with water balls, each one causing a clump of now-wet sand to fall into the growing lake. Why a flying sand platform was being used instead of just using surface-sticking to move to the wall was a bit of a mystery though.
Well, actually, Naruto wasn't sure that he'd ever seen Gaara use surface-sticking...or water-walking. Sand walking wasn't even a chakra control exercise when you had sand control either, so it was entirely possible that Gaara had never learned those exercises.
Sucked to be him if that was the case.
The dozen clones exhausted their chakra making water and dispelled, but there was plenty available now for other water jutsu. Specifically, Naruto started up the supersized blender technique, the water flowing up to catch the flying platform and strip away all of the sand. It quickly became obvious that Gaara had no clue how to swim either, but that made sense for someone who lived in the desert.
Once the sand was forced away from Gaara the water released him, but Naruto kept the technique going around his opponent to keep the wet sand from returning. Gaara hit the ground and gasped for air before looking around at the whirling wall of water around him.
"Got any non-sand tricks?" Naruto asked, though he was currently a bit of a sitting duck due to personally maintaining the blender jutsu instead of leaving it to clones. Luckily this was a one on one match.
"N...no," Gaara admitted, shivering a little. Possibly from the cold. "I surrender."
Nodding, Naruto allowed the blender jutsu to come to an end. A couple of clones were made to clean up the water by opening up a drain they'd blocked before taking down the earth walls around the doors, and Gekko looked like he approved of the initiative.
Drying out Gaara's sand was an entirely different problem. Luckily, Naruto felt that he was under no obligation to help with that. But he did help Gaara himself dry off.
"I think you put up a good fight despite your recent handicap," Naruto offered.
"It did not feel like I put up a fight at all," Gaara retorted. "And replacing my sand again is going to be annoying."
Obito was starting to think that Orochimaru's invasion plan had been doomed from the start. That was water creation nearing the level of Tobirama Senju...though Tobirama probably wouldn't have needed to use a bunch of clones to manage it. Then again, the kid probably hadn't needed to either, since he'd made the clones on the spot.
Given other rumors about the brat's team even before this false-tailed-beast power boost, and given that these were still merely genin? Konoha was likely far stronger than anticipated, and a serious threat to several alternate plans if the eye of the moon plan failed. Luckily the eye of the moon plan didn't require destroying the various villages first, though the reborn Uzushiogakure was definitely going to be properly wiped out once the tailed beasts they'd hidden away were retrieved.
At a minimum the abilities being shown that couldn't be copied by the sharingan needed to be prevented from being distributed further. A handful of people with abilities like this could be accounted for, but if this was reproducible then it would pose a significant problem. Madara would be...displeased if he returned to the elemental nations and the sharingan had been reduced to a useless curiosity that couldn't properly counter the average genin. The civil war and purges in Mist hadn't been an accident, after all.
Now, if Obito remembered the plans correctly, the lack of triggering the invasion by now meant that one of the post-finals plans was going to be used. Which meant that he could slip out of the village, but probably shouldn't. If the Snake Sannin perished, temporarily or otherwise, then his ring would need to be retrieved anyway. Seeing the current strength of Konoha first-hand would also be good, instead of hearing about it from Orochimaru later and possibly having things be distorted in the retelling of the tale.
"Creating water like that shouldn't be possible," Temari exclaimed while Hitomo and Karui were getting ready to fight. Admittedly, she'd spent the previous ten minutes checking over her little brother to ensure that he wasn't worse off than he looked before rounding on Naruto.
"It isn't that hard," Hinata retorted. "Just chakra intensive, and Naruto has plenty of chakra."
Admittedly, it probably was that hard for most people, but a complete 'net' made a lot of things that were thought to be impossible when it came to elemental chakra relatively trivial instead.
"Given that he also created ice," Neji said. "I think we can agree that it isn't normal. Tenten also appeared to create an actual lava ball in her match in addition to ice of her own, and I...foolishly dismissed rumors of Hinata being able to do similar feats as being baseless."
Naruto nodded. "Yeah, we've got some extra tricks."
"Maybe we should put on a show in our match," Hinata offered. "It isn't like we normally use those skills in the field."
"That's true. Anko-sensei would probably dislike us not holding back some of it though."
"And we agreed to a specific list of things to avoid using unless we felt it was necessary."
"...also true." Which was basically wood release, chakra chains, and the specific water jutsu used against Gaara and Yugito Nii, at least as far as what they'd use in the finals went. They had an informal agreement to not use spells in general as well, and Hinata had been asked to not show off snake summoning in case Orochimaru was watching. Just asked though, which she was probably taking as 'only do it if she has no other good choice'.
Further discussion was halted by the fight in the arena starting. Both Karui and Hitomo had their swords ready, but were avoiding engaging at kenjutsu range. Longer-range jutsu, thrown weapons with and without explosive tags, smoke bombs to conceal various actions, varying effectiveness genjutsu. They were obviously aiming to both show that they had a variety of skills that didn't depend on their swords so that it wouldn't matter which one moved on to the final match.
Eventually Hitomo made an attempt at using an underground movement technique to get behind Karui, only for her to notice the deception he'd left on the surface and realize what he was doing. As soon as he surfaced she'd engaged him, keeping him from getting into any proper stance and driving him back to the arena wall. There she successfully pinned him, and the match was over.
"Guess I know who I'm fighting after you," Naruto quipped.
"So you think that you're going to get past me?" Hinata asked.
"Yep."
"And why do you think that?"
"Because you've never been able to bring yourself to even possibly seriously harm me. It took faking you out by swapping with a clone to get you to strike me for real, and you refused to spar against me or my clones for two weeks so that I couldn't pull that on you again."
Hinata's pout as she failed to come up with a counter-argument was cute.
"If you two are going to go all-out in showing off then you'd better make a good show of it," Tenten warned. "Anko-sensei will forgive you if you make it look awesome enough."
That was a good point.
Naruto's opening move nearly mirrored Hinata's, both of them creating two dozen paperwork clones. His were all sand paperwork clones, which made them a little weaker but ensured that they could take hits and reform unless they were completely overwhelmed. He didn't think she'd gotten the mud version of that down, so had likely made standard ones. Rapid replacements between clones shuffled where they appeared to be before they broke off into groups. The actual Naruto ended up in a taijutsu match with one of Hinata's clones, but he could only tell that because one of his monitoring animal-form clones had been able to keep track of her and let him know. Another clone was engaging in a kenjutsu match with Kubikiribocho against Nuibari wielded by one of Hinata's clones.
The real Hinata had ended up joining the other clones in chakra element battles, rotating through which element combinations they were using as they went along. All five basic elements plus every two-element combination they'd done any practicing with at all. These frequently spilled out into neighboring battles as techniques overshot or were deflected, requiring significant awareness of their surroundings no matter what other skills were being shown.
In both the taijutsu and kenjutsu battles Hinata was noticeably not able to fully keep up with Naruto. He could spam more clones for training and had done so for far longer than she had been able to do the same, meaning that he just had more practice. It didn't help that he frequently learned things first and then taught her in both fields. That didn't mean that there weren't occasional surprises from her, but it did make those two battles a bit unfair.
Chakra elements were an entirely different thing. Yes, he'd trained in the combinations more than she had, just because he could train more everything, but she'd come up with some doozies of her own that he'd not been entirely prepared for. Her fire element was also consistently stronger than his, but his earth was also consistently stronger than hers. This created interesting unbalanced interactions between seemingly-equal jutsu.
Orochimaru had been curious what the two genin that had supposedly been bonded to the remnants of tailed beasts were capable of. The previous matches hadn't shown much, but he had high hopes for learning things from them being pitted against each other. Doubly so since they were his apprentice's students, and he couldn't see her ignoring lessons on how to put on a proper show.
He wasn't disappointed, and found himself wondering if getting his hands on a sharingan or two was actually the best way to progress in his goals. The two genin were using every elemental chakra type...with the exception of wood and dust release, but including several he'd never seen before. Finding and figuring out how to kill and bind the powers of a tailed beast to him was...a daunting task, especially with the goals of Akatsuki, but it seemed like it might be a worthwhile one to look into. Especially with two examples of it having worked in front of him.
At the same time, he was almost certain that he'd never be able to take either of these two over without claiming a tailed beast of his own. They very noticeably had more chakra than they had in the second stage. Potential hosts sadly needed to have less chakra than he did, at least at the time of placing the relevant seals. They also weren't likely to become dependent on a combination of his chakra and nature chakra drawn in by such a seal, given that they obviously had no need for that kind of boost already.
On the other hand, he couldn't actually confirm that this was due to the tailed beasts. Their teammate, completely untouched by that power, had shown the ability to use lava and ice releases, plus possibly explosion release. It was thus possible that the Uzu remnants, rebuilt village or not, had instead figured out how to induce kekkei genkai in a general sense. Doing that before bonding the tailed beast remnants to these two, if that was what had been done, would explain things as well. Seeking out the remnants or the rebuilt village was going to have to be put at the top of his todo list.
"That's damned impressive," A said. "Even if it's just as likely that they planned some of this ahead of time as we thought Hitomo and Karui planned their own show."
"And such planning shouldn't count against them," Hiruzen noted. "After all, thinking ahead like that is a good quality for a chunin to have."
"Indeed. What do you think, Rasa?"
"I find myself reevaluating the performance of my children," Orochimaru replied. "It's obvious that their opponents were being kind to them and allowing them an opportunity to show their own skills, such as they are."
Hiruzen nodded his agreement. "Yes, but I don't think it changes what we were thinking, nor do I expect the observing jounin to suggest that either be promoted."
"No, but it makes their dismal showing at least somewhat more palatable. This scale of combat doesn't seem to lend itself to preventing unnecessary deaths, though."
"Ah, but I can tell that they're keeping the dangerous techniques away from the real two. Which is either impressive coordination or awareness of their surroundings, if not both."
"He's got a point there," A agreed. "Arranged in advance or not, things are chaotic enough down there to make me wonder how they're pulling that off. And come to think of it, I don't think I've heard a single technique name called or spotted a single hand seal from them since the boy did his thing with the Hyuga boy."
"The latter is a skill that sadly needs to be picked up early on to be fully effective, and most children just don't have the drive to learn early jutsu without any hand seals at all."
"Even then you can run into problems with specific hand seals," Orochimaru added, thinking about one of the Suna studies he'd gotten a copy of. "These two look like they're unlikely to have problems there, but any hand seal you haven't eliminated your need to use in at least one jutsu by age fifteen or so can continue to give you trouble for the rest of your life. It also seems to be impossible for some people to eliminate certain hand seals at all."
"We've noticed the same, and that those hand seals seem to run in families."
Now that was something the Suna study hadn't discovered, and implied potential avenues to identify what the cause was. Not triggering the invasion already was turning up a number of useful things, and perhaps he'd need to raid the Konoha research archives before leaving...
Two major differences between their clones had become obvious over the past three quarters of an hour. First, Naruto's were far harder to put down due to reforming themselves when hit hard enough to be broken apart. Hinata had only managed to prevent two of them from pulling themselves back together thanks to hitting them with lightning release while they were partially disrupted and couldn't defend against it. The other difference was that his clones had far more chakra available to them thanks to him having more chakra to distribute between them.
Showing off with admittedly-ineffective large-scale high-chakra combat, since neither of them was going to succumb to tricks like genjutsu, meant that the one with smaller reserves was at an immediate disadvantage from the start. In this case that was Hinata, though both of them recovered chakra faster than they were using it as well. This meant that they both could easily spot who the real one was now just because the clones were significantly drained of chakra instead of recovering it rapidly.
Hinata was doing a great job of holding him and his clones off despite being down to only a half-dozen clones of her own. He'd lost five clones total, the two she'd destroyed and three that had used Itachi's modified suicide technique to take out groups of her clones. But he didn't want to use the few things he knew he could use to pierce her defenses with how grouped together she and her clones were. Most of them were a bit too explosive, and she'd spotted each of the six attempts at slipping past her defenses underground.
What she hadn't spotted, or realized was a problem, was the build-up of sand around her. His sand techniques were...well, outside of the sand style paperwork clones they were primitive and generally pathetic. Gaara had much more impressive jutsu available on that front. But even the primitive ones left sand behind, and Naruto had retained control of that sand. Since Hinata really only noticed sand immediately around her that he wasn't controlling, as it came under her control?
It made it easy to take her by surprise through pulling all of the 'dormant' sand around her up to encase her. That distracted her clones, three of which immediately moved to try to help free her, and allowed his clones to overwhelm them over the next few seconds.
"That's not fair," Hinata grumbled after Gekko had called the match.
"You'd have done the same to me if you could've," Naruto retorted.
"...yes, I would've. I still don't think it's fair, but that's the point of doing it."
Everyone other than Tenten had stared at the two in a state of obviously-dazed shock as they had another snack to recover energy while the arena was put back together and a final round of betting was opened. Naruto was also in communication with his parents though, as they'd decided to reach out to him through their connection to the Tome. Mostly out of a desire for it to hopefully not be noticed, compared to sensors being able to detect the communication jutsu.
"We think you should either show chakra chains or use the Rasengan during your final match," his mother explained. "To show off one side of your heritage."
"Preferably the Rasengan," his father continued. "But only because your Uzumaki heritage is largely confirmed already."
"That and you promised to avoid using chakra chains to make it harder to connect you to the tailed beast removals."
"Well, yes, there is that."
"I've only got the basic rasengan down," Naruto noted. "Haven't put enough effort in to get an element added or anything."
"You shouldn't need more than the basic one, and I never managed to add elemental chakra in either. The point is that we think you no longer have to fear some of our enemies. After today they're either going to think twice about going after you or nothing is going to stop them anyway."
Well, that was largely the reason he'd not been using the Rasengan...outside of it almost never coming up as a useful thing to use in the missions he'd been on, anyway. It was a flashy technique that left noticeable signs of being used. Not something you wanted to use during an infiltration. But showing it off here wasn't a horrible idea either.
Of course, it was also possible that Karui wasn't going to give him a good chance to use either skill. He'd have to see how the fight itself actually went.
"Hey Naruto," Anko-sensei sent via the communication jutsu a few minutes later. "I want to see if you can reveal where my former sensei is."
Naruto blinked, as did Hinata who had obviously been included. "And how am I supposed to do that?"
"Use his fancy sword, that's how. If he's anywhere watching then I suspect that he'll react in a noticeable way."
"And that will definitely turn me into a target for him, if only to get it back, and he already demonstrated that he had one way of getting through my Knight Armor. I don't need to give him reason to show me another way."
"...okay, yes, there is that, and Kurenai is glaring at me for even coming up with the idea..."
Yeah. Naruto thought he might survive using the Rasengan. Showing off a highly recognizable stolen-from-Orochimaru sword while they thought that Orochimaru was likely in the audience? Nope. Not happening.
Gekko got the signal that whatever had been holding them up for the past five minutes was no longer doing so and started the match. Naruto immediately made two clones, one of them backing off as though it was the real him while he and the other clone pulled kitchen knives out of their armbands. Karui was...well, infuriated that they'd insult her that way was probably the best way to put it, at least until she actually swung at the real him. In response, he flowed chakra into the knife and sliced the end of her katana off.
She immediately backed off, looking in shock at her now-shorter blade, before scowling and producing a storage scroll from her pouch. A moment later she had a new katana out, the old one sealed away. This one was obviously higher-quality, and she pushed her own chakra into it a moment later. Just in time for the clone that had backed off to throw one of its fuma shuriken at her, but she had no trouble dodging it.
"I hate smart opponents," she grumbled. "I've seen you fight four different times and you keep showing new tricks." This was followed by darting forward, slashing at the closer clone. It was fast enough to block with its kitchen knife, but she used a complicated twist to get behind it and bring her blade to its neck. It just dispelled in response, taking her by surprise.
"You're lucky that I'm not trying to kill you," Naruto commented, making three more clones. These were sand clones instead of paperwork clones.
"Because your clones can be made to explode. Yes, I just remembered that, and that means that I could be said to have just lost."
"The match hasn't been called in my favor, so I think you're good."
She raised an eyebrow, but darted forward again. This time she made some hand seals and launched a wave of lightning his way. He and his clones all dodged it, him going under it and his clones jumping over it. Unfortunately, the lightning tricks were likely to cause him problems as they had the potential to one-shot his sand clones if he wasn't paying proper attention. He blocked her katana with the kitchen knife again, but this time she attempted a quick disarming move instead of trying to get behind him like she had with the clone.
He managed to resist being disarmed, and she flowed past him anyway to move onto the next clone. In response, he returned the kitchen knife to storage and followed after her, forming a Rasengan in the palm of each hand. She successfully disarmed the next clone she came to, but seemed surprised to see him following behind her. What had to be a near-instinctive swing of her katana was met with a Rasengan, the likely-elemental chakra in the katana fighting the compressed ball of unaligned chakra, and after a moment the Rasengan won. The katana exploded into fragments, a couple hitting each of them, and she immediately retreated while pulling her storage scroll out again. This time she pulled out a tanto, and then started on a string of hand seals.
Figuring that she'd decided that this needed to be a ranged battle now, he started launching elemental balls at her as a basic move. That wasn't enough to distract her, and she completed her jutsu. Unlike what he'd expected, she pulled water from a bottle on her belt, sending it forward. But it was being kept together like a whip, and he quickly realized that it was likely to be used as a conduit for a lightning technique. He dodged the water instead of striking at it while the first paperwork clone he'd made that had backed off took advantage of no focus being on it to drop into the ground.
Karui continued to use several combination methods to deliver lightning attacks, mostly alternating between water and ninja wire, while dodging anything he threw at her and keeping her distance from him. They gradually circled each other during this, until suddenly the clone that had been hiding underground popped up behind her and grabbed her. He darted forward while his clone had her distracted, a Rasengan forming in one hand while a tanto appeared in the other. She used a burst of lightning chakra to pop the clone, but the damage had been done and she wasn't able to get her own tanto up before Naruto was on her.
"Dammit," she said, glancing at the tanto at her neck and the Rasengan next to her tanto. "I surrender."
Naruto nodded and backed off, Rasengan and tanto vanishing. "I expected you to put up more of a fight than that."
"You're the least honorable sword user I've ever fought."
"Thank you."
"...that wasn't a compliment."
"I'm a shinobi, not a samurai."
"And you aren't a kenjutsu specialist, so I shouldn't have treated you like one or let your targeting of my swords get to me like I did."
Hiruzen looked down at the ten participants. "After discussion with the observing jounin, we've assembled our findings and will go through them from the first eliminated through to the winner. To start with, Kin Tsuchi, you showed appropriate preparation and planning throughout the exams. While you didn't win your only match, we do not believe that it was because you were lacking. However, your village leader is not present, so we can only send our recommendation that you be promoted to chunin."
Kin nodded, but said nothing, so he turned to focus on Neji before continuing. "Neji. You showed significant skill in taijutsu, but even a Hyuga needs more than that to become chunin. In addition, you allowed your judgment to be clouded and fell into an obvious trap in your match. You will not be promoted at this time."
Neji nodded. "I understand, Lord Hokage."
"Sasuke. You showed all of the traits expected of a chunin, bar one. Your recent changes have left you too unfamiliar with your body. That leaves you, and your team, in a precarious position. When that is corrected, through reversal of the changes or you having enough time to become properly accustomed to them, I expect that you will easily earn your promotion."
Tail drooping slightly, Sasuke nodded as well. "Understood."
Rasa stepped forward next. "Temari. You obviously need to expand your skill set beyond ranged wind techniques, and your panic in the face of the unexpected means that you cannot be promoted at this time."
The girl grimaced, but nodded her acceptance, and Hiruzen turned to Tenten. "Tenten. While you did an excellent job showing a variety of skills throughout the exam, you had a serious lapse in judgment in your second match that endangered yourself and your opponent. The same decision would have put yourself and your allies in danger in the field. Further, you obviously haven't mastered Shibuki as sixteen explosive tags were primed but not triggered, causing problems for clearing the field after that match. This was deemed serious enough to disqualify you for promotion at this time."
"I understand," Tenten replied.
It was Rasa's turn again, now focusing on his son. "Gaara. While you showed decent tactics, you are far too dependent on your sand and the loss of the one-tail has severely hindered your capabilities. For now you will remain a genin as you train your neglected skills up."
Gaara nodded his acceptance, and Rasa stepped back as A stepped forward. "Hitomo. We suspect that your match against Karui was at least partially staged to show skills that might not have otherwise been able to be shown. That does not count against you, and between that and your performance in the other stages you have earned your promotion to chunin."
Hitomo was the first one to bow, and Hiruzen continued. "Hinata. You showed a variety of skills throughout the exams, as well as good judgment in holding back from using your clan's primary training against those that might end up crippled as you gain control over your recently gained abilities. We also believe that your match against Naruto was somewhat staged, but do not hold that against you. Your choices in your match against Temari would have been questionable in the field, but we believe that you simply did not want to engage her before she had a chance to show her own skills. You have earned your promotion."
"Thank you, Lord Hokage," Hinata replied, bowing to him.
A then looked towards Karui. "Karui. You showed a number of skills throughout the exams, as well as during your match with Hitomo. While you were baited into losing your temper in the final match, you were able to adapt to changing circumstances against an opponent that I honestly don't know how I would have approached with as little information as you had. You have earned your promotion to chunin."
Karui bowed as A moved back, and Hiruzen turned to the final participant. "Naruto. Like your two teammates, you showcased a number of skills throughout the exams, in addition to an understanding of how your opponents would think. We also suspect, but have been unable to prove, that you were behind several...oddities during the second stage. While some of your choices during your matches would also be questionable in the field, it was determined that you were following the same pattern as your teammates and giving your opponents a chance to show their own skills. You have earned your promotion."
"Thank you, Old Man," Naruto replied with a bow. Followed by dodging both of his teammates trying to slap him for the perceived disrespect.
"A motion was also made to promote you to special jounin, based on your skills and mission record. While it passed the requisite number of jounin supporters, I could not endorse it at this time. While you adapted well to your recent changes, I would prefer that you have fully adjusted to them before you are promoted past chunin." This time Naruto merely nodded, and Hiruzen looked over them all. "You should each receive an official copy of your evaluations in the next few days, as well as information on your promotions for those that earned them."
Glad they got to have an exhibition match with each other.
