Sasuke—who'd awakened his Sharingan and trained with Kakashi—was showing results that were downright insane for his age, going toe-to-toe on equal footing with an opponent who'd been grinding his ass off for years.
Lee's sensei, the scrappy, brawly brute Guy, gripped the balcony railing, watching tensely.
When you watch the anime, you can't really feel it, but here—even though they were "just" genin (yeah, crazy strong for their rank, but still)—the floor was vibrating from their clash.
Before long, the Uchiha apparently got bored of "playing around," and his eyes flared red. Instantly, his movements got faster—and way more precise. But the scariest part for his opponent? Sasuke started predicting his moves.
Lee immediately felt the pressure spike, and with every second he started taking more and more hits. Turns out his opponent had been holding back hard—and now, with the Sharingan on top, he'd jumped a whole level!
Rock kept tensing as despair started creeping up on his heart. Trying not to look his opponent in the eyes and trying to think up a good combo, he heard a loud voice roll across the arena:
"Lee, take them off!" Guy shouted.
The genin in green got distracted, got cracked across the head, and went flying a few meters. Still, he didn't screw it up—twisting in midair, he landed on his feet, skidded noisily as his shoes scraped a couple meters of floor, stopped, and immediately sprang aside, dropping onto his fingertips, hands in a focus seal.
"But you said that was only for protecting the people close to me, Guy-sensei?!"
He snapped his gaze up to the balcony, where Might Guy was standing right next to his longtime rival—Kakashi Hatake. Kakashi, if he was interested at all, wasn't showing much. And even that was only because one of the fighters was his student.
"Today it's allowed! I'm allowing it!" Guy said, holding one finger up and flashing a smile.
Sasuke, watching his opponent run off with a confused look, kept watching—now with interest—as Lee pulled metal weights out from the cloth cuffs around his legs. And then holy shit—the thunderous crash, the cracked floor, when Lee just dropped them.
Rock immediately shot at Sasuke, way faster than before. They traded a few blows, circling around, and Lee realized—Sasuke had been holding back even earlier! Because his speed still didn't lag behind Rock's current speed!
They closed in again, traded a few hits, and Sasuke brutally booted Lee several meters away. Lee kicked up dust as he braked across the floor, then got back up.
"Is that all you can do?" Sasuke asked, like some aristocrat who'd just found out you can't ride a cow like a horse.
"We're only getting started, Uchiha-san," Lee replied politely, dusting off his clothes. And then chakra flared inside him, boosting him. "First Gate—the Gate of Opening! Second—the Gate of Healing! Third—the Gate of Life, OPEN!"
His skin reddened, veins bulged, and visible blue chakra started coiling around him.
"Now that's more like it," Sasuke said, raising a brow as he watched his opponent loosen the wraps on his hands and let several-meter-long bandages spill onto the floor.
After a short prep, Lee dashed—at a speed so ridiculous Sasuke didn't even have time to react. Lee closed the distance and snapped an upward kick, launching the Uchiha into the air.
As he moved, a thought flashed through Rock's head: Yeah. Now you definitely underestimated me.
"Primary Lotus!" Lee announced, winding his bandages around his opponent, locking him down, then driving them both headfirst toward the ground. They shot almost to the ceiling, and as they dropped toward the concrete arena floor, Lee started spinning faster and faster with Sasuke—only to release the bindings at the last moment and slam him into the concrete with everything he had!
But… instead of cracking, the floor burst into smoke—like a clone dispersing. The impact still echoed, but way weaker. The sound came from Lee's own landing.
The smoke cleared, and a stunned, exhausted Rock Lee appeared through it. That technique was draining as hell, and opening the Gates wasn't exactly cheap either. Jerking in sharp motions, he searched for his opponent… but couldn't find him.
"Pathetic." The Uchiha's voice came from the shadows—turns out he was leaning against a stone in the shade of the statue's hands, and of course he couldn't resist humiliating his opponent. "You never looked me in the eyes. But back then, when we fought at the Academy, I put a delayed genjutsu on you. I knew we might fight. After you opened the Gates, all you hit was a shadow clone."
Explaining it, he looked damn pleased with himself—sure even his brother couldn't have pulled something like that off.
"Back then, you said hard work beats talent." Sasuke took a step; dark marks spread across his skin, and the whites of his glowing red eyes filled with black. "Now I'll show you what happens when you put both together!"
A wave of vicious, dark chakra rolled through the hall as the Uchiha kept pushing that energy outward.
Lee took an involuntary step back.
The bloodlust hanging in the air was so heavy not every jonin could pull that off. Worse—because of its nature, his chakra started exceeding the average jonin's level.
Guy, who'd already been watching seriously, crushed the railing so hard it bent with a screech. Kakashi—who'd looked lazy a second ago—sharpened up, quickly trading looks with the other jonin and me. He was clearly figuring out when they'd need to jump in.
Hiruzen, sensing that much malicious intent, frowned.
A lot of the genin started exchanging anxious looks, while that unknown Konoha trio straight-up pressed into each other and slowly backed away from the rail toward a corner, like they wanted to curl up there and shake.
Still, because I let a bit of my own chakra out—messing with the flow of the Alien stuff—the girls and I weren't affected.
"Let's begin!!!" Sasuke roared, then moved forward at a speed even more ridiculous than Lee's earlier rush. His movements were so fast Lee barely managed to throw up a hard block before Sasuke's axe-like kick slammed into his arms.
The concrete beneath them blew apart with a loud crack, the floor spiderwebbing with fractures, and the ground under everyone else shuddered.
Rock Lee—surprising almost everyone—took it, only pain flashing across his face.
"Arm bones cracked," I noted, watching.
What was worse was the immediately-following gut punch that sent him flying up toward the ceiling, coughing blood.
"Three ribs broken. Lung punctured," I kept noting.
Sasuke jumped after him, matched him midair, grabbed him, and—like Lee had done earlier with his clone—wrapped him in wire. Then he pulled the two ends with kunai attached and slammed them into the walls, pinning the line in place.
Landing, Sasuke looked up at his opponent hanging just above the floor—immobilized, almost unconscious.
The distance between them was about ten meters. Good for a run-up.
"We'll end it here." The Uchiha snapped through a quick series of hand seals, and his hand lit up with thousands of dark lightning sparks, filling the air with that bird-chirping screech. "Chidori!"
Sasuke, at least to me, was showing real clear that his seal training hadn't been for nothing. His boost was multiple times over. Yeah, the sen chakra was still messing with his head plenty, but when Sasuke took a step, he wasn't allowed to take another—
In a swirl of leaves, two jonin appeared in front of him: Kakashi and Guy.
"Enough!" Hatake said firmly, watching his student warily.
And for good reason—he immediately had to dodge a wide swing of that lightning technique. Right after that, Sasuke had to sharply evade Guy's strike aimed at taking his legs out.
For a few seconds the jonin tried to stop the slippery genin, until Sasuke managed to break free. He immediately rushed at Lee again, like he'd gotten stuck on the idea of killing him. But he didn't make it—
Guy, already at full speed and with the First Gate open, caught up and sent Sasuke's body flying with one heavy hook. A moment later, Sasuke was slammed into a wall off to the side.
"Knockout," I noted again, relaxing. Up to that point I'd been ready at any second to swap places with Sasuke using the mark on him—so he'd just shoot forward off the balcony. After that, beating him down wouldn't have been a problem.
"They're strong," said a red-haired guy on another balcony, with a burn-scar kanji for "love" on his forehead and a huge gourd of sand on his back. A nasty smile showed on his face. That was the One-Tail jinchuriki I'd been watching—also the Kazekage's son, Gaara of the Sand.
"Yeah… takes two jonin to stop one," the guy next to him grimaced. He was wrapped up in tight black clothes, with purple lines on his face. "Those Hyuga weren't weak. But this is just beyond."
That was Gaara's brother, Kankuro.
"And that's not even all," the blonde girl next to them added. She had four neat pigtails, a light-purple dress, and a massive fan on her back.
That was Temari, their sister.
She turned her head toward Sakura—and, by extension, toward Hinata and me.
I smiled and waved at the trio. The girl and the guy in black turned away, while the redhead's gaze got interested.
My reputation was bound to leak, even if not the full picture—so as a genin I was considered very strong. They'd seen Hinata in action. And Sakura too, even if only a little.
Gaara wiped the smile off his face and started radiating bloodlust. I deliberately wagged a finger and tapped my left wrist, showing: not yet. But we didn't get to keep trading gestures.
"Uzumaki-san!" Guy hopped up next to me, with his student still wrapped in wire. "Please, examine Lee!"
And he straight-up shoved the unconscious body at me.
While I'd been messing around with Suna's team, they announced Sasuke's win, and Kakashi hauled him off. And my, like, "buddy" didn't have serious injuries. Rock, though, was exhausted from opening the Gates.
"So much for my break," I sighed to myself, looking around. Everyone was watching—if I tried to dodge it now, it'd look like complete shit. And he's Guy's student, so… "Alright, fine."
Chakra threads snapped out of my hands. Under Kankuro's interested stare, in less than a second they lifted Lee and unwound him from the wire. Then, punching through the skin, they slid into his chest area to set the ribs back in place. A quick flip of the body in midair—I open the patient's mouth so the pooled blood pours out through the opening I just made—straight off the balcony. Then Rock's whole body flared with several shades of green chakra, and the air hummed.
Ten seconds of steering chakra flows inside the body, and the lung was fully restored—along with every fracture, every crack, and the muscle tears caused by the Gates and a body not built for that kind of load. Another flip, and I handed Lee back to Guy, who'd been watching like he was hypnotized.
Kankuro, who'd been watching just as closely, stared at his own hands like an idiot and started clenching them.
"So… you can use threads for healing. Holy shit."
"And there's his iryo-ninjutsu again," Temari said with raised brows. "He's the guy who made a Leaf elder hide from him for a whole month. And he's got this kind of talent too?"
Gaara didn't say anything. Instead, he winced like there was a voice in his head—happy, demanding, shrieking—that he absolutely had to kill that blond.
"For the next five days, keep Lee out of training," I started giving instructions. "Also make sure he eats well and balanced, and sleeps properly. After that, over a week, you can get back to your normal rhythm. And yeah—he'll wake up in a few hours."
"Ha-ha! Thank you, Uzumaki-san! How can I repay you?!"
"It's nothing. Don't," I waved it off. "You've taught me plenty already."
If Sasuke had been here and heard that—especially considering the price tag on my work with his seal—he'd have coughed blood from envy and unfairness. But luckily for him, he was already in the tower's medical wing and couldn't hear a thing.
The Hokage, seeing I wasn't trying to screw someone over—and that this someone wasn't even close to me—bugged his eyes out. Then he quickly looked away so the crowd wouldn't notice his weird reaction.
"No, that's… a very valuable service! I can't accept that!"
"There's nothing hard about it. A routine operation—back at the hospital a team of medic-nin would've done it in a few hours."
My tone basically said, "It's bullshit-level easy. Yeah, I did this on the fly. But it's done fast, right?"
"But I can't," Guy stayed stubborn. "And… I haven't shown you everything! So I'll consider it an honor to teach you my last technique—Night Guy! I hope you can use it without opening the Eighth Gate."
"Oh!" I blinked. "Then I'll be honored to learn it from you."
"Ha-ha! Glad the Power of Youth still burns in you! I suppose I should go." After I nodded, Guy flashed that smile, turned to his team—a battered Neji and an intact Tenten, watching us. "I'll be back soon!"
And then he straight-up booked it to the medical wing with his student.
"He's weird," Hinata said, watching him go.
Sakura, who'd been silent this whole time, nodded.
"But he's kinda cool," I shrugged and turned to Hiruzen.
Because of my gesture, the Hokage finally looked down at the arena and realized everyone had basically decided to wait until I finished with Lee and finished talking to Guy. He waved a hand so they'd turn the wall monitor back on and pick the next opponents.
"Next fight… Haruno Sakura versus Akiyama Sora!"
"Who?" I didn't get it right away, but then I spotted the Leaf genin from that still-unknown trio that had huddled up when Sasuke's bloodlust hit. "Ah, got it. Good luck, Sakura."
I patted her shoulder as she skeptically looked her opponent over. The guy… didn't impress at all.
"Thanks." She turned to me, nodded gratefully, and jumped down into the arena.
Akiyama Sora wasn't in any hurry to go down. A guy who looked about thirty, with plain chestnut hair, a small mustache, and two vertical scars on his left cheek, looked extremely on edge. His team was known in some circles as one of the oldest genin trios around. They also got called the most cowardly team, though the members preferred calling themselves "careful."
And right now the most careful of the three was getting actively shoved forward by his oh-so-caring teammates. But Sora really didn't like this idea. His opponent had moved so fast in the Academy auditorium he hadn't even noticed! And she was on the team with that fox monster and that scary-as-hell Uchiha. That wasn't a team, it was a bunch of monsters—and he really didn't want to go up against one of them. What if this time two jonin didn't react fast enough and that was it? Game over.
Hearing his teammates' encouragement, Sora still managed to gather his resolve after a few seconds and, on shaking legs, went down.
"Wisdom is knowing when to retreat—like a river going around a stone. You can lay down your weapons right now. Most likely, there won't be any punishment for it," Sakura noted philosophically, scanning the opponent in front of her with a flat look.
But instead of retreating, he twitched into a Leaf style stance.
"T-t-t…"
"…?" Haruno didn't get the stutter.
"T-thirty-four times! That's h-how many times I've tried to pass this exam!"
"The hell…," I muttered, surprised. "Guess Kabuto's his idol."
Sakura—like a lot of people—was surprised too.
"I'll go to the end. B-because that is my ninja way!"
Despite everything, determination started smoldering in his eyes—like he really wanted to prove to himself he wasn't useless.
"Damn, that was a fast 180," I thought. "It was obvious he didn't want to come out here."
"Well," Sakura raised a brow for a second. "There's something to that."
"Ready?" the proctor asked cautiously, looking the opponent over with doubt—without even coughing for once. Getting nods, he signaled the start.
…
"So are you just going to stand there?" After about ten seconds of waiting, my teammate crossed her arms over her chest. She looked the guy over again and sighed. "You can show what you're capable of. We're both Leaf, and I'm not planning to do anything you can't recover from."
…
"Okay. I'll pretend I didn't hear all that talk about your ninja way," she sighed again and formed a one-handed focus seal.
"And once again, looks like he changed his mind," I noted, kind of melancholy.
An invisible bundle of chakra shot out of her toward the genin across from her, and he dropped unconscious. A simple chakra technique with a Yin tilt from the ANBU arsenal. Works great on opponents with weak chakra and shitty control.
As you can guess, Sakura won.
Ino watched, looking shocked. But she didn't dare come over to ask questions. Still, she already knew about my training with Haruno.
Sakura came back, got a little embarrassed when I praised her and squeezed her, and then stood with us—me and Hinata—watching the next fights. But after the first two matches, the rest, unfortunately, didn't look nearly as bright. At least they went pretty fast.
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