Naruto : Reborn As Sukuna Haruno

The match had barely begun before Kiyomi realized something was terribly wrong.

She moved first the moment Genma gave the signal, her body exploding forward as she attempted to establish the pace of the battle before Neji could make use of any of his Gentle Fist techniques, or even worse, any of the curse techniques if her idea that this wasn't Neji were correct.

Her fist shot toward his face, only for the world to blur unexpectedly. The punch struck nothing but air. Before her brain could even process where he had gone, a violent impact slammed into her ribs from the side and sent her skidding several meters across the arena floor.

'Cough…' She felt like all the air from inside her was forced out. Pain shot through her.

'How?' She seemed to ask herself. She didn't even see him moving. Even with the Sharingan, there were just blurs, and the next second he was gone.

The audience gasped immediately while Kiyomi dug her feet into the ground and recovered her balance, her Sharingan spinning furiously as she searched for him.

This time, much more focused on his movements with her Sharingan than just using those eyes for namesake.

"Didn't see that coming, did you, eh… Uchiha b*tch." A voice came from behind her. She turned immediately only to find he was gone again, now behind her.

By the time she found him standing several meters away exactly where he shouldn't have been, she saw that it wasn't teleportation, since with just a blur, she had seen him moving around. He was just very, very fast. There had been no Body Flicker.

This was raw speed. Her senses were as advanced as Sukuna's to track someone mid-fight; however, she felt it too. This wasn't teleportation, it was speed.

For a second, Kiyomi just looked at Neji's face with her Sharingan in clear disbelief. Besides the unbelievable speed, there was something else as well.

Before she could even figure out what that feeling was, Neji in front of her had already vanished from her vision and reappeared behind her.

Kiyomi barely managed to twist her body before a palm strike crashed into her shoulder instead of her spine. The impact still hurt. Another blur followed immediately afterward, then another strike, then another.

Every exchange ended with Kiyomi being forced backward while Neji casually danced around her attacks. Even with her Sharingan active, she struggled to maintain visual contact with him. That's how fast he was.

Kiyomi, just relying on her three-tomoe Sharingan, was getting pushed back. However, at the same time, she was getting used to his movements.

"Woh… how come Neji is suddenly so fast? What happened?" Naruto was the first one to lose it, mainly because he couldn't track Neji's movements.

Having no dōjutsu of his own and possessing no sensing ability currently, Naruto was even worse than Kiyomi, the one who was actually facing this ridiculous, almost teleportation-like speed on the battlefield.

"Sukuna, you got to know something, right? If this continues, Kiyomi will lose." Karin, true to her Uzumaki self, spoke second, only after Naruto, restless. Even though she didn't like her Uchiha teammate, she didn't wish for her to lose the fight, especially when this was the second time they were facing each other after fighting to a draw.

Sukuna, on the other hand, didn't reply. He, with Izumi, just observed, both equally silent and equally grim-faced at what was going on down on the battlefield.

Back in the fighting ring, once Kiyomi's Sharingan got the gist of his movements, she realized that he wasn't moving in a normal way.

It was a strange movement. That's why she had such a hard time tracking him with her eyes.

The spectators could only watch in disbelief as one of the candidates flickered around, disappearing and appearing. For normal people, it was nothing else but teleportation.

For most civilians, this was normal. Even a normal shinobi Shunshin was nothing less than teleportation for civilians. That's how fast shinobi were. But for shinobi, they knew better.

The seasoned shinobi knew it was speed they couldn't associate with a normal Body Flicker.

"What mastery of Shunshin." One of the Chunin stated. However, a Jonin beside him shook his head because he could tell that it wasn't the Shunshin Technique.

It was something else entirely. The biggest problem with Shunshin was direction control. It was a single-direction, high-speed movement technique, and it left behind a trail, a predictable trail to the point that most shinobi wouldn't use it in a fight.

What the young Hyuga was using was something else entirely. His movements weren't straightforward; otherwise, against a Uchiha with the Sharingan, he would long have been predicted and intercepted.

No, his movements were fluid. He wasn't just moving in a single direction, and yet he was maintaining that high speed. That was not Shunshin.

Perhaps a Genin or Chunin couldn't figure it out from farther away, but Jonin sure could, and surely many did.

Even Hiruzen Sarutobi narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what Neji was doing. What kind of technique was that which made someone so fast?

Both Rasa and Terumi Mei were the same.

"What's wrong?" Neji back in the fighting ring asked mockingly as he appeared beside her yet again. "I thought the famous Uchiha prodigy would be more impressive than this."

Kiyomi's eyes narrowed. Besides getting talked down to by Neji, there was something else that irritated her: that voice, that attitude.

That disgusting sense of superiority. It was so familiar and right there on the tip of her tongue that it was maddening that she couldn't exactly pinpoint what made her so annoyed by it.

"Keep talking and I will send you back to the same hospital bed, asshole." Kiyomi growled while her eyes were completely occupied trying to capture his movements.

It was strange. It was like he was teleporting, but not a single teleport, rather many smaller teleportations taking place in between his movements.

Like a jagged videotape with too low a frame rate to understand anything. Even a Sharingan had a hard time figuring out what his next move would be.

To be exact though, Kiyomi was able to track him, at least to some degree. What was troubling was predicting his moves due to these jagged movements. Sharingan wasn't made for this shit.

Another strike landed against her guard, forcing her backward once more, but she barely noticed the pain anymore.

Knowing she wasn't getting to him anytime soon before figuring out his trick, she had poured most of her curse energy into reinforcement. Her reinforcement had improved drastically after a month of training under Sukuna. If anything, they had worked especially on reinforcement, knowing she would be having a rematch with Neji.

That, when combined with her somewhat semi-Heavenly Restricted body, was able to endure the punishment Neji was dishing out while he was mostly playing around rather than actually going for a winning lethal move.

Unfortunately, her idea of figuring out his trick wasn't going as planned. Perhaps someone like Itachi or Sukuna would have figured it out, someone with natural talent and a real zeal for fighting. Kiyomi wasn't like that.

She was getting strong out of necessity, meaning she lacked the needed talent or plot armor to miraculously figure out the enemy's technique mid-fight.

Good thing she had the Sharingan, but even with that, it was hard. She needed more time, at least that's what she thought.

So, she couldn't immediately figure out how to counter Neji. Instead, her memories of her past life resurfaced while facing the Hyuga.

Memories of her childhood from another life altogether. Memories of her living in the Zenin Estate. Endless hallways and the mockery filling those hallways toward her and her sister.

Every time Neji taunted her, she recalled that time. She was so used to this kind of thing back in the Zenin Estate that she almost took it for granted back then. Now, facing the same thing again, she realized why Maki couldn't stand it.

Why her sister left the clan, left her, to join Jujutsu Tech.

And among the countless memories of her childhood torment, there was one person who stood out the most, the memory of a blond-haired boy who seemed to enjoy tormenting both her and Maki whenever the opportunity presented itself.

'Yes…' She blinked, for a second forgetting altogether that she was supposed to analyze his technique. Instead, she found the similarities almost uncanny.

The way he spoke. The way he looked at people. The way he treated women as if they were inherently beneath him.

The resemblance was becoming impossible to ignore.

'Nah… it can't be just a resemblance…'

'I refuse to believe that there could be another son of a b*tch like him out there. He has to be him.' She, for some unknown reason, was sure of it.

"You…" Kiyomi muttered while blocking another incoming strike.

Both for a second came face to face, Byakugan and Sharingan glaring at each other with unrivaled intensity.

Looking into those eyes, which were unfamiliar and yet felt so familiar now, seeing the contempt behind them, she was certain. There was no mistaking it.

"You are," she spat.

"Naoya Zenin."

Neji, who had been enjoying himself so far in the match, tormenting the woman, suddenly froze.

He didn't say anything, but that change in expression was enough to tell Kiyomi enough.

For the first time since the battle began, genuine anger surfaced inside Kiyomi. "Of all people…" she growled. "It had to be you."

Neji's eyes narrowed because, unlike Kiyomi, he couldn't identify Kiyomi.

"Interesting… now this is getting really interesting. Seems like you know more than I expected you to." Neji's stiff face, after a while, turned upside down and broke into a smile.

Yes… This was none other than Naoya Zenin, reborn inside Neji's body. Neji was already dead; his body had long been hijacked.

He had suddenly woken up one day in this body, out of nowhere, uncertain what was going on, and if that wasn't enough, an entire lifetime's worth of knowledge and memories had been dumped onto him.

As for coming here to participate in the Chunin Exams and fight against Kiyomi, he just didn't have anything better to do. Not to mention, he couldn't let himself lose to a woman now, could he? Even if the one who lost was the pathetic previous owner of this body.

"I was wondering about that. You see, the memories I inherited explain plenty of things, but they don't explain how I got here. They certainly don't explain why someone in this world is using curse energy."

His Byakugan activated as veins bulged around his eyes. Unlike before, his attention became noticeably more focused. He was no longer simply playing with her. He was studying her.

"Now, let's start with how you know me and who you are, shall we?" Neji grinned.

Above the arena, Sukuna's expression was getting even worse.

"Those idiots are talking about this out in the open." He gritted his teeth with irritation. That stupid sorcerer in Neji's body might not care about a ninja village going after his ass after they learned he was a reincarnator, but he did care.

Not to mention, just like Kiyomi, he too had figured out the identity of the person. And saying those two had history would be an understatement.

"Why is it always me?" he muttered with irritation.

Beside him, Izumi was still trying to process what she was seeing. The speed itself had already caught her attention; however, she seemed to have seen something like that somewhere before. At least something similar.

It was a technique, alright. And if Kiyomi wished to exploit the technique, she had to figure out how it worked.

As for Izumi herself, she too was trying to figure it out. Her Sharingan was much more trained, and she was a lot more observant than Kiyomi. She had figured out at least the nuance of the technique. However, she herself had no way to deal with that speed unless she was forced to use her Domain, that is.

"How will you handle this one, girl?" Izumi muttered to herself, now looking forward to the match even more.

Back in the arena, Kiyomi continued struggling against the overwhelming speed advantage. Every attempt to attack was interrupted. Every opening vanished before she could exploit it.

Neji, no, Naoya, was just that much faster. Even the Sharingan wasn't giving that much of an advantage to her since the Byakugan was mostly countering those advantages.

'How come he learned how to use those eyes this quickly?' Kiyomi all but cursed to herself.

Naoya was treating the fight less like a battle and more like an experiment, constantly probing her defenses while throwing insults whenever possible.

"You know," he said while effortlessly avoiding another attack, "the previous owner of this body losing to a girl was honestly embarrassing. I almost wanted to punch his corpse myself."

Kiyomi's fist clenched, retreating quickly as she saw him closing the gap between them.

Then suddenly she stopped trying to match him in the speed department. Something just seemed to click inside her mind.

'There is no way I can land a punch on you. Why even bother? You're too strong.' She recalled complaining to Sukuna.

And his response was what made her realise.

'Oh, so you at least have that much logical reasoning to know that you can't land a hit on me the way you are right now.' He had mocked, earning a sharp glare from her, but he had taught her what to do next too.

'However, I'd rather you focus more on the cause of the problem than the problem itself. You can't land the hit, but why?

Am I too fast?

Am I predicting your movements?

Or do you just suck at throwing punches?

Figure out where the problem lies. Fix them one by one. If it's me predicting you, you have to be unpredictable. If you think I'm too fast, then you have to raise your speed. If you think you suck at throwing a punch, then learn that.' Sukuna had told her.

'But that could take months, if not years. What do I do now?' She complained.

He had sighed, like she was some hopeless case, but still answered.

'If that is the case, then instead of bringing yourself up to the opponent, bring the opponent to your level.'

She remembered those words clearly.

"Got it…" Her eyes shone in acknowledgment.

The instant Naoya rushed forward again, Kiyomi slammed her hand against the arena floor. Metal spikes erupted from the ground without warning. They weren't big; that would have cost too much curse energy. No, they were small and numerous, to the point that they would hinder his speed.

And surely, they forced him to abruptly alter his path unless he was planning to get the soles of his feet full of holes.

It was only a minor adjustment, but Kiyomi saw it. Any obstruction in the area would act as resistance, from slowing him down to even creating a delay in his technique's activation.

For the first time, she successfully tracked his movement from beginning to end by simply eliminating the choices he could make by avoiding the spikes on the ground. It wasn't perfect, but with the Sharingan, it was much better now.

And seeing it was working, she turned it up a notch. Clapping both of her hands together, like a certain overpowered Senju monster, she brought life to not plants but wires.

Why? Because they cost less curse energy, she was pretty good at using them alongside her Sharingan, and lastly, they were excellent at hindering enemy movements.

The plan she had of relying on her Kiba Blades imbued with Sukuna's technique was discarded immediately. It was pointless using a good weapon if said weapon would never hit.

Instead, she chose to use wires and other trap items to obstruct Neji's speed.

Naoya's eyebrow twitched slightly as dozens of thin ninja wires suddenly appeared throughout the battlefield. They stretched across the arena like a giant web, connecting broken stone, walls, and sections of the floor. Unlike ordinary traps, these weren't prepared beforehand. Kiyomi was creating them in real time.

Of course, that little part he didn't notice. Not that even if he did, he would have figured out it was her technique. Her technique was so subtle by the nature of its application she was forced into that finding the technique itself, for someone unaware, was quite hard.

With spikes restricting movement and wires creating a new obstacle,

Every obstacle reduced the number of routes Naoya could take. Not that he couldn't just overpower them all, but that too would bring its own set of resistance.

Resistance and a gap, which Kiyomi was looking for.

His speed still remained absurd, but now he had to think before moving.

"So, this is the shinobi way of fighting… tch, how annoying." Neji clicked his tongue with irritation.

xXx

A/N : Ah... finally. While there are many ways this fights could have gone, but I personally thing this is how it would have gone. Naoya is strong, there is no doubt about it. He most likely would have swiped the floor with Kiyomi if not for him being so new to Neji's body. And we know projection sorcery need extreme control over once body for the unparalleled speed it provides.

And of course, he is not used to how a Shinobi fights.

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