What is Worth Protecting? -Naruto

33# Preliminaries!

It had been a week since Ryouichi and his team made it to the tower and they were instructed to go down into the main area where everyone was waiting. Naruto had woken up the next day when they arrived a little bit in a daze, only remembering a small amount. Kurama had filled in a few of the details while he was getting his bearings around the tower, having blacked out messed with his memory again.

Nevertheless, Naruto was glad that everyone was fine from the encounter with the snake sannin. The days that passed were spent recuperating and Naruto sensing each team entering the tower, he was glad that most of his previous classmates got there eventually. After those days of resting, they were now in front of the Hokage who was looking out on the genin that remained.

"I would first like to congratulate all of the remaining genins who have made it this far, and also explain why it is we have these exams." Naruto frowned slightly, he had heard this from Ryouichi, as the Daimyo he had to know these things but the thing that got him was... "War... that is the reason we do these exams." All the genin besides a few visible tensed. "It's a form of war that shows each individual's power, however, it's to mostly show your villages potential of power."

When Hiruzen said this, most of the genins had one thought going through their mind... these... are the best genin from their villages. Naruto squeezed Ryou's hand briefly, of course, he was nervous, there was some scary competition. "Now, to proceed, we will be doing preliminaries and once we have the winner of the preliminaries we will be hosting the final in one month, Hayate?" Hiruzen looked over towards a man who looked to be tired and fairly sickly as he coughed briefly.

"Yes Hokage-sama, I will now explain these Prelims." Naruto sweatdropped briefly, hearing the man cough again and was concerned with how much he was. "We will be using this to determine the fighters, it is completely random so don't you worry." Naruto had a mere moment of nervousness, wondering who his opponent would be before the bored started whirling...

Before this starts I'm telling you most of these will be the same and will not show so there will only be three fights and I hope you forgive me that I am in the rush to update :x

After the first few fights, Naruto was getting more and more worried, he saw the fight with Shikamaru and that girl Kin from the sound and felt a little worried that he might have to fight his fiance, but when he felt his hand being squeezed he looked up and he saw his name on the board... and next to his was none other then Kiba Inuzuka.

"Yeah! Let's go, boy! Come on Naruto let's see how strong you got!" Naruto smiled slightly and he was pulled slightly towards Ryou and a kiss etched onto his cheek, "Good luck love." Naruto smiled and gave a wink at him, "Thanks." He looked towards the fox on his shoulders and gave a small grin, "Wanna fight with me Yukio?" The fox gave a yip of approval, his tail was shaking with excitement. He gave a grin before not even using the stairs he jumped down into the arena with Yukio on his shoulders perked up.

"So I see you found a friend of your own?" Kiba asked making him nod, "He's my summon, but yes I would say he's my friend." Naruto smiled as the fox jumped down and stared down the little pup. "Don't expect me to hold back because we are friends Naruto." The blond smirked, "Don't be silly, I'd be offended if you did." Kiba matched his grin before looking at Hayate who was waiting for the genin to stop reminiscing. "Alright, the Seventh round shall now begin, Hajime!" Naruto didn't move an inch as he was staring at the two smaller forms in front of him, they had been set on a starring contest for a moment.

Suddenly Kiba and Akamaru shot forward in the surprise of most people there, knowing exactly how fast most Inuzuka's are, Naruto stayed put before at the last second he and Yukio's moved their body swiftly and elegantly and started to dodge their advanced, Naruto bending his back and flipping away from him. Ryou had been starring and gave a grin at what Naruto was doing... He was just warming up.