Naruto: Crimson Ninja

Chapter. XX

The audience return to their seats for the semi-finals. With the water all cleaned up, the fights are ready to continue. Genma speaks up.

"Welcome back! We will proceed immediately with the semi-finals. Due to the odd line-up, this first fight will determine the first finalist, while the remaining fights will determine the second one. Now then the first match is between Naruto Uzumaki and Gaara! Both of you, come down."

Naruto smirks as he unties the headband on his waist. No one notices that he covers the metal part with his hand. He pulls off his coat and reties the headband to his waist, again covering the metal part.

"Hey, Kankuro. Look after my coat for me, will you?"

"Sure thing, Naruto."

Naruto walks down to the arena, where Gaara is already waiting.

"Good luck, Naruto."

"You too, Gaara. I'm just glad Mom fixed your seal, or I might be stuck fighting Shukaku."

Gaara smirks. Genma calls the start of the match.

"Begin!"
The sand pours out of Gaara's gourd. Naruto does some handsigns.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

He applies fire chakra to turn it into a flame thrower. Gaara's sand forms a ball around him. The flames heat some of the sand, until it turns to glass and shatters. More sand quickly refills the hole that was made in the ball as a result.

"Come on, Naruto! You have to get through my sand defense to beat me!"

More sand shoots out from the sphere, forcing Naruto to dodge.

"You can do better than that, Naruto!"

Naruto keeps on dodging the sand. He does some handsigns.

"Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!"

The blast blows another hole in the sand, which quickly refills. Sand is still shooting out at Naruto. He decides to use more handsigns.

"Water Release: Water Gun!"

He fires off enough of them to cover the entire sand ball, soaking it. He then pulls off another move.

"Wind Release: Spiraling Wind Ball!"

He shot a few of them at Gaara. They made holes in his sand, but the holes were taking longer to fill up. Naruto takes advantage of this.

"Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!"

A bigger hole is formed in the sand sphere. Naruto can now see Gaara.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

The powerful gust forces Gaara through what's left of his sand sphere. He lands near the far wall. Naruto takes his advantage. By the time Gaara recovers, Naruto is standing above him, with another Spiraling Wind Ball directly in front of Gaara's face.

"Surrender, Gaara. Or this will go right through your head."

Gaara nods his head in defeat.

"Very well, I surrender."

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!"

The crowd is silent. They don't want to cheer for Naruto, due to the Kyuubi, nor Gaara, due to the stories they heard from Suna civilians.

Naruto whispers to Gaara.

"Good thing we held back."

"If we were to go all out, we would destroy this arena along with some of the village."