Through My Lying Eyes

8 - Challenges

Naruto was heading home after passing the genin exams. Tomorrow, he would get the rankings and see who his teammates are. He hoped he was on the same team as Sakura, his crush, but he'll have to wait on that for now.

Right now, he was walking down the street without a care in the world, completely ignoring all the glares and whispers from the adults on the street. He turned the corner and accidentally bumped into someone, making Naruto fall on his butt. He looked up to see a man about to say something. "Hey, watch where you-" the man stopped when he saw the blonde in front of him.

The man gained a look of anger and tried to grab Naruto by the collar of his jacket. Naruto, seeing what this guy was trying to do, started backing away, eventually getting up off the floor. The man saw this and went to lunge forward and punch Naruto out of anger. Naruto saw the fist coming towards his face, when suddenly, the fist started moving very slowly, almost to a stop. Naruto was confused, but didn't have time to think about it and dodged him. With his above-average speed, he made his way to his house and locked the door.

"The hell was that?! Why did everything slow down all of a sudden?" Naruto asked himself. "Everything seems fine now, maybe I was just hallucinating." He didn't want to think about it right now, so he checked to make sure nobody followed him home. Seeing no one, he went to sleep.

The next day, Naruto woke up and did his morning routine and quick workout before heading to school. He jumped on top of roofs at a fast pace to avoid confrontations like yesterday. He got to the classroom door and opened it, to see he was early again. 'Damn, I'm usually never this early, guess I'm just excited.' He thought to him self. He went to sit near the back of the class and took a nap to wait.

Naruto was suddenly woke up from his nap by Iruka using his 'big-head jutsu' to silence the class. He noticed Mizuki wasn't there, which was odd, but he didn't care to much about him. "Alright, now that everyone's quiet, I just want to congratulate all of you. Especially to the rookie of the year: Uzumaki Naruto." He said, shocking everyone, including Naruto himself.

"WHAT!" Said an angry Uchiha. "How the hell is he the rookie of the year? I deserve that rank more than him!"

"I'm sorry Sasuke, but Naruto had perfect scores on the test, kunai throwing, and taijutsu. You did good though, ranking second, far above third isn't an easy task." Iruka said to try and calm Sasuke down.

"That's meaningless if I'm not first. I demand a match for the title!" Sasuke said.

"It's up to Naruto to decide, not me." Iruka said.

Naruto sighed. "Fine, let's go outside." He said tiredly while walking down to the door. Everyone soon followed them out side.

Naruto and Sasuke got into the same circle circle they did the taijutsu test in. "Are both of you ready?" Iruka asked to receive a nod from both. "Then, HAJIME!"

When the start was called, Sasuke ran forwards and sent a low punch to Naruto's stomach. Naruto dodged to the left, and sent his leg in Sasuke's stomach instead. Sasuke buckled up a bit, but sent his fist backwards to try and backhand Naruto. Naruto was almost hit but before the fist could reach him, time seemed to slow down, allowing Naruto to cleanly dodge. 'It happened again. What the hell is that?' He thought to himself. Naruto took a couple steps back to recollect himself and set up for another counter. Sasuke got up and took a deep breath, then started running to Naruto much like last time, with his fist out aiming for the face. Naruto dodged to the right this time and once Sasuke was past him, he chopped the back of Sasuke's neck, knocking him out.

Iruka went to check Sasuke and called the winner. "Winner, Uzumaki Naruto." This made the fan girls accuse Naruto of cheating somehow, just like yesterday. Naruto ignored them and walked back to class with his hands on his head.