CHAPTER 1: To Kick a Rock
The little rock bounced off the wrapped foot of a small boy, his black hair unruly, large eyebrows scrunched up in concentration. He had been kicking this rock for a while now, and his foot was starting to hurt, but he paid it no mind. He ran up to it again, kicking this time with his left foot instead of his right, eliciting a small grunt from his mouth. He was getting better, he thought, not really sure how to measure his progress in kicking the rock across the street. All around him people were going about their day, rushing to a store, going home to their families, and a few, a select few, were wearing forehead protectors of a dull silver, the Konoha leaf emblem scratched upon it. Those weren't walking, no they were practically flying above the small boy's head, leaping from roof to roof, as if such a thing were totally inconsequential. The boy had spent hours and hours just watching them, but right now he didn't have the time, he needed to be able to kick this rock much, much, much harder.
The boy ran up to the rock again, pouncing upon it with all the might of his four year old frame. He extended his leg back, as far as it would go, and swung it, growling with determination only to find himself on his back, a small cloud of dust rising around him in the middle of the busy street. No one paid him any mind, but the stampede of feet did manage to kick his rock away, sending it who knows where. The boy picked himself up, holding his butt and whimpering slightly, more over the loss of the rock and the unfairness of it, rather than the physical abuse he had put himself through. He looked at where the rock used to be, it having been untouched by his swinging foot, despite his best efforts. "Well, whatever," he thought, "I'll just go get a bigger rock, that one was getting far too easy to kick anyway." He shrugged a bit, and then set out to go to the rocky field that had become his second home, not that he really had a first home.
Making his way through the crowds, the small boy known as Lee, no surname, he was just an orphan, tried his best to keep his head up, not wanting the dust being kicked up by the adults around him to get into his face, making it already dirtier than it had been. He had noticed pretty early on that clean children were less likely to get kicked out of stores into the rain or pointed and laughed at for being an orphan, and, if you were lucky and very clean, you could get random sweets and warm smiles from the adults that, for the most part, ignored those not within their immediate vicinity or family. He had been a bit shocked at first, when he had first seen a small child trip, fall, and start crying, only to be picked up and hugged by a warm and soft looking mother. Lee didn't have a mother, but he could tell, just from that small interaction, that having one must be pretty amazing. Those hugs looked like they could cure you of any malady, whether it be hunger, hurt, or the elements themselves. He had almost run to that small child and his mother himself, wanting to share in their love and acceptance, but an errant leg had "accidentally" kicked him to the wayside, and as he had looked up he had seen a man, not evil, just bored, smirking at him and then rolling his eyes to the mother hugging her child. He had wagged a single finger at him, totally silent, but Lee didn't think that he had ever been so completely stopped and silenced by any other action. What the man had said had been clear, "That is not for you. You are not a part of this." And Lee, as a child can only do, had believed it, and he had made it a part of himself.
And so, from then on, it had been him and the other orphans in one group and the families and villagers in the other. That was how it had been until he had seen a Ninja at least, a Shinobi, one of the protectors of the Village. They were always in the shadows, even in the brightest moments of day, they seemed to move behind others, never in the forefront, and they were separate. They weren't with the villagers, they moved among them, but they weren't OF them. There was a difference, and that difference was painfully obvious for one who existed in a similar state, but unlike him and the other orphans, there wasn't the same pain in the eyes of the Ninja, they were above it, they floated on top of it seemed. It was certainly there, beneath the surface, but they were untouchable to its effects, not that he didn't see some Ninja in pain, coming back from missions, but it was a different quality, he couldn't put it in words, in fact he had never really thought about it, but it was something he internalized almost automatically. He just knew that that was what he wanted. He wanted the pain to stop.
Lee looked around suddenly, jerked out of his own thoughts and memories as he came upon the rocky field. In the middle was a huge boulder, easily twice his own size, and he glared at it. It was the object of his goals, and no stupid rock was going to stop him from his dreams and hopes. He glared once more at the rock, then started searching for a much more manageable sized one to kick around. He finally found one that seemed suited for him. The one before that he had been kicking around had been the size of his fist, and it had been the third or fourth rock that he had taken to kicking. This one though was much bigger, and Lee was okay with that, kicking this much larger rock would probably be brutal and time consuming enough that he wouldn't have time to think back upon that mother and her child. He didn't like to think about that, it made his insides hurt, and while he was used to getting kicked, or falling, or having older, bigger orphans beat him up, there was something about this inside pain that was so much worse. He shook his head, no use worrying about that, maybe it was serious, but dwelling on it did nothing, however, kicking this rock would get him closer to his dream! This particular rock was a scratchy granite, about the size of his head, maybe twice or three times as big as the last rock. Lee appreciated the size of it, thinking that if he could kick this around easily in a week or two, then up the size of the rock again by two or three times, then in about 5 rocks, maybe, he might be up to the boulder. Lee eyed the rock carefully, having developed a healthy appreciation of the hardness and weight of rocks when he first started. Lee wound up his leg, planted his forward foot, and let it fly.
If one had been watching the rocky field that existed right by Training Ground #23 they would have been amused at the frantic hoping of a small boy, clutching his right foot with tears streaming down his face.
Lee was crouching down by his rock, aptly named Alexander (aptly being a subjective term for Lee), staring at it with a hard gaze. He had been kicking Alexander around for about two weeks, and while his toe had healed enough for him to continue kicking, it had been a clean break, luckily, he had stopped making progress with his kicking power. He was only able to make the rock go so far, about 5 feet before the forces of gravity took over and firmly stuck the rock to the ground. This was not good enough in Lee's mind, he had managed to get the last rock to fly a lot farther than 5 ft, almost 20 ft sometimes. But no matter how hard Lee swung his leg, it seemed like the rock wouldn't move more than just 5ft or so. Lee stared harder at Alexander, wondering what had changed.
'Okay', Lee thought, 'The rock itself probably hasn't changed. Alexander would let me know if it was getting fatter', he grinned at Alexander, 'So maybe it is me? Maybe I am getting weaker? But that doesn't seem right, I swear I can kick it for longer, just not farther, and by now I can barely feel the top of my feet.' After he had broken his toe, Lee had taken to getting his toes far away from the place of impact, starting to hit the rock with the top of his foot, like he had seen some of the older kids do with a ball. Lee stared at the rock again, bringing himself out of his thoughts of the older kids having fun. 'Okay, well it probably isn't the rock, so it must be me. And I don't think I am getting weaker... but how can I test that?' Lee thought hard for several more minutes. He was getting impatient, sure Lee could think, heck he caught on pretty fast even, picking up the lessons at the Orphanage pretty quickly. However, he had gotten pretty used to just kicking stuff, and he wanted to go back to that, he needed to reach his dream soon, dammit! 'Oh, oh! That should work!'
Lee ran off to the rocky field that he visited frequently, carrying Alexander under his arm like a doll. Running to the field, Lee noticed that he also seemed a bit faster? Maybe? Hard to tell, he wasn't really one for keeping track of stuff like that. Regardless, once he got there, Lee started looking for a rock that was similar to the size that he had used previous to Alexander. Once he found one that was, by approximation the same size and weight, Lee set it down and planted himself, ready to kick it with all his power. Gazing at the rock intensely, all his focus on it, Lee wound up his leg, cocking it back as far as it could go, and sent his leg flying, the top of his foot crashing into the rock, sending it flying away, all across the field. Lee was surprised! He hadn't expected that, he didn't know the length of the field but he knew that this kick had sent the rock flying farther than he had managed before. Lee started walking towards where the rock had landed, placing each foot right in front of the other (this was how Lee had measured his previous records). By the time that Lee had reached the rock he was pleased to find that it was 60ft away (these are not real feet, these are small children feet). That was practically, Lee did some math in his head, three times as far!
'Okay, well this definitely means I'm stronger, so there is something else going on here.' Lee, once again, crouched down and started thinking, his large eyebrows waggling in a very disturbing way as he thought things over. 'I'm stronger, the rock is the same weight, but it isn't really going any farther.' Lee clutched his head in his hands, 'This doesn't make any sense! What is going on? Okay, okay. What else do I know about hitting things? 1. The stronger you are the farther the thing you hit goes (but was that true, recent events seemed to disagree...) 2. It seems to help if I wind up more, not sure why though 3. It hurts when you hit things hard, the harder I hit the more it hurts...' Lee struggled with this last one point, it seemed important... 'OH! Wait, the time that it hurt the most was when I kicked it with my toe, but it didn't seem to go that far. Hmmm.' Lee sat upon the ground, staring at his right foot. Finally, he decided to just take a look at his actual foot, rather than just the bandages wrapped around in an estimation of a sandal (the sandals sold to orphans tended to just fall away, while still being pricey, so Lee had decided to stop buying them, bandages were way cheaper). Peering down at his foot, Lee looked it over, noting the rough surface of the top of his foot and the slightly crooked middle toe that had been broken some weeks earlier. Then he looked at the bottom of his foot, cutely twisting this way and that to get a better look. He pulled his foot to his eye level, looking at the bottom of it, rough and tough from his constant walking and kicking with nothing in between. The roughest part seemed to be just below where his toes started from his foot, and pushing upon that spot he could tell that a bone seemed reside there. Looking at the heel of his foot, Lee discovered the same thing, it was very rough and strong there too, with a bone somewhere underneath. Lee then pushed on his toes; they were soft and wiggly and after a little bit he started to laugh, nearly forgetting what he was doing as his toes wriggled and he played with them. Then, accidentally forgetting about his broken toe, he grabbed that one, causing a small spasm of pain. 'Right, right, trying to figure out how to kick harder!' He punched himself in the head a little, gotta get back on track. Lee then pushed against the top of his foot, which, while rough, didn't seem to have the same amount of toughness to it.
'Hmmm, okay, so the top of my foot works pretty well, but it doesn't seem as tough. Maybe I should try a different spot? If it hurt less than maybe I could kick harder, which would make it hurt more? But then if it hurt more it would go farther! That makes sense, yosh! Lee promptly wrapped up his foot, jumped up, and walked up to Alexander. Aiming carefully, he swung his leg back and geared up for a major kick. "This time you are going to fly, Alexander!" He shouted, and then let loose with his kick, but this time he aimed with his heel, trying to hit with the tough part of his foot, trying to kick harder than he ever had before. However, Lee wasn't particularly gifted at acrobatics or physical exertion and ended up totally whiffing, his leg overextending, causing him to flip and land directly on his back, the dust getting blown up further pushed away by the explosive breath that left his body. He choked on nothing for a bit, tears coming to his eyes as he gasped for non-existent breath. Eyes red and standing a bit wobbly, Lee rose to his feet, glaring at Alexander, "Low blow, Alexander, low blow." Lee murmured, setting himself up for another kick. "This time for sure I'll hit you and send you flying, just you watch!" Lee threw another reckless kick, again aiming with his heel but this time with his left foot, and again he had similarly disastrous results. But again and again, Lee picked himself up, dusted himself off, and kicked, again and again.
By the time the sun had started to set Lee was getting closer and closer. His heel had started to brush the rock, destroying his wraps and, then, after that, destroying his foot in the process. His heel had started to bleed, but Lee still rose, still wound up and kicked, alternating legs to give his sore and bloody heels a bit of rest. Finally with the sun almost set, the air beginning to take on a bit of chill, Lee wound up with his left leg, right leg planted a bit closer than normal to the rock. Lee imagined Alexander cheering him on, his little rock face stuck in a cheery grin, and Lee let it rip. Over the hours of practice he had figured out that the kick he was performing needed more forward motion and less of a rising angle, like the one he had used to get the top of his foot under Alexander. Lee concentrated, his foot coming in from a more direct angle, as he pushed everything he had in it. His leg seemed to be on track, and as Lee extended his knee, he started to grin, and he kept on grinning when his heel finally made solid and perfect contact with the rock, only to drive it a bit into the hard ground and for the reverberation and force of the vicious attack to travel back up Lee's leg. He howled, alternating between holding his leg and crying, hoping about and shaking his fist in anger, and looking at Alexander with puppy eyes, asking, "Why, Alexander, why!" What he didn't notice was the fact that the rock had been driven a fair distance into the hard, tightly packed dirt. Finally, upset with the results and upset at Alexander, Lee walked away, muttering that he would be back to try the ball of his foot tomorrow, "And you can just stay there and think about what you've done, Alexander!" Lee yelled, stomping off, only to clutch his foot at the impact and hop off into the sunset.
The next day Lee awoke to the sun, he had, unusually, woken at mid-morning. Usually the brightness of the sun and Lee's lack of hardy shelter meant that he was up shortly after dawn. But it seemed that the previous day's activities had left his body drained. Looking down at his feet, Lee saw that his bloody heels had dried to the raggedy blanket that he had found some months ago. Once you got to a certain age the Orphanage stopped giving hand outs, being already hard pressed to even care for all the newborns, especially in the wake of Kyuubi's attack, the remaining resources were far too few to be given out to those age four and above. Lee, unlike some, had managed to survive alone, making his own makeshift bed out of materials that he had scrounged up. He was also feisty and strong enough to protect his precious possessions. Although he knew that if any of the gangs of older orphans wanted to, they could remove everything he had, even his life. That happened sometimes, but it was very rare, even the unobservant and uncaring adults with their happy families would take notice of a dead child in an alley.
Lee whimpered a bit, peeling the old blanket off of his heels which had stuck to the dried blood, and stood up. He had another style of kicking to try today, the balls of his feet were unhurt, and he, in a child's way, was confident in his optimism. Plus, he was excited to see the familiar face of Alexander again. While Lee was aware of the fact that Alexander was just a rock, although a handsome and charming one, he still found himself missing it. There weren't a lot of friends around to find, and Lee would rather have an imaginary friend then go crazy from loneliness. Lee waggled his eyebrows at that last though, something seemed... off about it. Shrugging, Lee ignored his contradictory and problematic statement, instead focusing on his most excellent kicking schedule and the dream of sending Alexander flying (Lee had, near the beginning of this arduous task, determined that every rock wanted to fly, so kicking them repeatedly was just fine). Lee was so caught up in his thoughts that he never noticed the small group of kids moving towards him. He was worried about the effect of the, relatively, cold nights on Alexander and whether or not rocks preferred the warmth or cold when suddenly he became aware of the five children that had nearly surrounded him.
"Look, its the rock lover!"
"Hey rock lover, where are your parents?"
"They probably died from eating rocks!"
"Heheheh, yeah, talk about hard-headed."
Lee looked up abruptly, recognizing the girl slightly to his right, nestled by the largest of the group, a slightly chubby but tall 7 year old. Lee's eyes blazed with an inner fire that no one noticed as he stood straight as a pole, left hand in a fist at his hip, and his right arm pointing straight ahead, finger extended directly at the girl, "Just you wait, I'll kick that boulder to the moon, and then I'll be a Ninja!" The girl stood stock still for a second, the others around her slowly starting to laugh. The girl shook herself, then smiled hugely, her eyes glinting harshly. Laughing softly she challenged, "You'll never be a Ninja, rock lover, plus" she grinned wickedly at this point, "they changed the requirements; now you have to be able to punch that big boulder apart as well!" The kids around her guffawed even louder at that, but Lee just figured they were laughing at his inability, rather than the fact that this was all a lie. Lee, somehow (ignoring physics), stood up even straighter, extended his arm even more, and yelled as loudly as he could, "NOTHING WILL STOP ME! YOSH! I WILL BE A NINJA!" The kids around him laughed even more, not believing that a four year old, especially an orphan, would still believe what they had told him weeks past.
They had seen him idly kicking around a small pebble, talking to no one as he did so, when a Ninja had quickly burst into view, checked the surroundings, and then continued on, disappearing as suddenly as they had appeared. Lee had been in shock, as well as the other kids, but they had noticed the longing in his eyes, and they wanted to be Ninja as well, all the kids did. But he was different, he didn't go to school with them, or have parents, or nice clothes, or well kept hair, or clean fingers and toes, or shoes, or any of a hundred other things. Different was something that they feared, their parents had been infected with the fear of the Kyuubi, of those who had power, those who were separated, and fear, unlike most diseases or viruses, could be spread effortlessly, across large swathes of people, and the children had a bad case of it. So they had advanced as one, their own fear controlling them from the deep recesses of their minds, in tune with their parents, and they had descended upon the boy, who was different.
They had regaled him with stories of Ninja, about how amazing they were, how they were loved and respected. How any kid worth their salt became one, and the ones who didn't were sent away from the village to be eaten by demons in the forest as sacrifices, and then, taking their inspiration from the small pebble that the boy had been kicking, had told him that every child that wanted to be a Ninja had to kick the large boulder in Training Ground #22 50ft. They had all bragged that they had already done it, that they had to do it on bigger rocks, but that the Ninja liked orphans (only if they succeeded though; they hated failures), so orphans just had to kick this smaller rock the required distance.
Lee had eaten it up, his face glowing with excitement as they told their tale, convinced that he could finally achieve his dream, to end the weird and unending pain that kept him up at night. He had been hoping from foot to foot as they finished up, pumping his fists before running off towards the training ground, to try immediately to do what the older kids had all done already. The kids, had barely believed that their tall tale had worked, and had erupted in laughter at the stupidity of the orphan.
That was about three weeks ago, and now, here was the stupid orphan again, telling them that he was actually going to kick that boulder just like they told him too. This was the first time that anything any of them had been taken so seriously, and the flush of power through their young minds kept them from really noticing or taking seriously the bloody bandages that doubled as shoes for the young orphan, the malnutrition that paled and cut his face, or the feverishly burning eyes that needed this. Instead, with the egging of the Blonde Girl, they had supported the new rule. That a Ninja now needed to kick the boulder the 50ft and then break it apart with their fists. One or two of the more creative ones quickly scuffed their own fists, and then turning back to the orphan, showed their "wounds" saying that they had just destroyed their own boulders, seemingly put out by the mundane nature of the task. The kids, sans Lee, started laughing again.
Meanwhile, Lee, still in his pose, was becoming desperate in his own mind. 'Break it apart with my fists? Is that even possible', he thought. He saw the evidence of the other kids' work, their fists just a little scuffed, and then Lee thought about his own feet, torn and bloody, without even dealing with a boulder his own size, let alone the one that was three times his size! 'What can I do? Can I do this? I want to be a Ninja. I want it, I want it, I want it!' And then something broke or maybe steeled in Lee. He was either on his last legs or standing up for everything he had fought for throughout his life, he was either trapped or choosing his path, but regardless, the result was the same, 'No, no, no, no, I need this. I will get this. I won't hurt. I'll be a Ninja. I'll do whatever it takes. If I don't its all over!' And so Lee kept grinning, stuck in his pose, and nodded vigorously. He covered his anxiety, his worry, and his fear with one great last pose, his hair blowing in the sudden wind before taking off, running towards the boulder that he HAD to destroy or be destroyed himself, ignoring the way that the hard ground dug into his wounded heels, the way that his breath caught in his lungs, and the haunting fear of the looming task ahead of him. He didn't want the Ninja to think he was a failure.
Behind him, one of the kids that had been teasing and who hadn't started laughing again due to the strange orphan's resolution, stood and watched him run towards Training Ground #22, her brown hair all done up in buns wavering slightly in the breeze that had accompanied the orphan's hasty exit. She had finally noticed the bloody bandages when he had sprinted off, and she hadn't been able to laugh afterwards. As the Blond Girl yelled, "Yeah, good luck with that Rock Lee!" she and the other kids gleeful over the new nickname, the girl with the brown buns turned and started to walk away as her stomach sunk to her feet in their nice shoes, unbroken from kicking rocks.
Lee was working a word around in his mouth, "Rock Lee" he mumbled, as he walked around Training Ground #22. He liked it. It was simple, but it was strong, and looking over at Alexander, he could tell his friend approved. There was something appropriate about the nickname, and while he vaguely knew that the what the Blond Girl had yelled was supposed to be insulting, but that didn't change the fact that the name seemed to suit him. He knew that those kids didn't like him, why was a mystery, but for the most part their taunts and insults didn't penetrate his kick-centric exterior. The stuff about his parents got through though. He was simultaneously enraged and happy about the comment about his parents eating rocks/being hard headed. He liked rocks too! And it would be awesome to share such a connection with them. He had often wondered about who they were, and had finally decided that they might have been rocks, like Alexander, plus that meant they weren't dead. Rocks never died. And he could forgive them not being there, it was hard for a rock to move! Lee smiled sadly at that thought, wondering if maybe they wished their human son would find them, and then Lee thought they might be angry at him for not finding them sooner. He knew that sometimes parents yelled at their kids for not going home. But he wanted to be home! They would understand right? They had to! "They understand, right? I mean, they'd have to, right Alexander?" Lee gazed at his friend, expecting an answer, but only getting the vague and unmoving smile that he had designated Alexander's face. Lee smiled, taking the silence as an affirmative. That settled, Lee, no, Rock Lee, geared up to take a kick at Alexander, using his brand new style of kick, Ball Kick!
Much like the previous day, Rock Lee mostly exhausted himself for the first few hours simply missing, having to now correct his accurate, but useless, heel tendencies for kicking. His clothes were becoming heavy with dust, and the small amount of food he had taken with him to the training ground was quickly consumed by the semi-ravenous child. He never got much food at all, and all of this training seemed to have the serious by product of rapidly increasing his hunger. However, Rock Lee struggled on, paying his attention no mind, instead focusing everything on his right foot, specifically the ball of the foot. Winding up again, Rock Lee unleashed his sure-fire kick, only to scrap some of the skin off of the ball of his foot, barely pushing Alexander, grin still present, over. The boy alternated between grabbing his foot while yelping and grinning and shouting because of his small victory. Several hours later, found Rock Lee huffing and puffing, both of his feet bloody at the heel and ball of the foot, with Rock Lee vainly attempting to rest his weight on his toes and nothing else. Once again glaring at Alexander, he sat down, content to gather his strength for another grueling session of sending Alexander skyward. Checking his feet, Rock Lee thought about the cool things that Ninja did, from doing missions (presumably to a place to do something) to wearing cool looking clothes (he thought he would look good in anything that wasn't falling apart) to moving about the village with impunity (the vendors probably gave them free food!). Rock Lee once turned his gaze to the boulder, and then to his hands, he needed to start on the punches soon. The boulder looked pretty hard, besides being heavy (he had started his training by simply trying to kick the large boulder, but had quickly found it to be quite impervious to any of his efforts). Rock Lee shook his head, no use worrying about it when there was kicking to be done! He stood up, his feet protesting by leaking a fair amount of blood, and staggered/walked over to Alexander. Staring off into the distance, trying to gather his concentration, his eyes suddenly caught something moving in the distance, 'a shadow' he thought? But there it was again, appearing in the forest, then disappearing, then appearing once again, and it was moving closer! It was zig-zagging across the forest, making no sound. He tried to follow it, to catch the shadow with his eyes, but he only saw the edges of it, even as it drew closer and closer. It was teleporting all around, and then suddenly it stopped, almost 100ft in the forest, it was a Ninja, a girl Ninja! She was somehow holding herself to the side of a tree, her pupils wildly scanning the area before locking to her right, and then she was in motion, heading for the middle of the clearing where Rock Lee stood, gaping dumbly while Alexander just smiled at him.
'Must have taken soldier pills. Too many. He would die, but he could catch her. Mission could be compromised. Mission would not be compromised. Run for now, use terrain/knowledge to advantage.' Ri's quick rest turned into a burst of action as she headed for the clearing, 'clearing, open space, allow for those who needed to to see her. That many soldier pills, interfere with ability to plan, space to move, space to plan, space to outwit/trap/kill. Ri felt him behind her, his chakra a roiling mass of chaos and strength. 'He can overpower me, negate power, make own advantage, win, kill, accomplish mission.' As she launched herself into the clearing she put down a line of explosive notes, using a quick genjutsu to barely cover them, probably all she needed for his enraged and overstimulated state. She spun herself in mid air, sending a flurry of kunai into the woods behind her, leaving a space in the open for him to dodge, straight into the explosive notes. 'Herd a wild animal, control it, defang it, kill it.' Her training was a quiet voice in her head, not wasting words or energy. As she spun, she caught a glimpse of a boy, gaping at where she had rapidly existed from the forest, his head only beginning to turn in her direction. 'Ninja? Training Ground #22. Off limits. Danger? No, civilian, ignorant. Protect? Mission parameters: Civilian targets allowed, protection of information/delivery of information paramount, everything else secondary. Ignore civilian, REACT!'
Suddenly her pursuer broke through the woods, barely dodging the kunai, going through the small gap in the middle, his chakra overloaded mind sending him straight into the explosive notes that promptly denoted, wrenching a smile from the Ri's normally impassive face. She turned to the boy, appearing directly beside him, ready to knock him unconscious, this was a stealth mission afterall, and the less details he had about her the less likely his story would be believed. Root would not look kindly upon having one of their operatives marked, even if it was by a small child with bloody feet. Then, suddenly, a roar, 'Alive, threat, alive?' Her pursuer broke through the explosion, his throat exuding pure chakra, chakra that was holding parts of him in place, his flesh torn and seared from taking the explosions head on. His eyes, not really seeing, zeroed in on her, charging at her at a pace that was simply ridiculous, nevermind him missing parts of his left thigh and right calf. Ri was momentarily shocked, but training took over, 'Civilian targets allowed. Mission must be completed.' And with that her shocked mind allowed the Root training to take hold, as she switched from turning to her attacker to spinning into a kick that sent the small boy to her side flying at the enraged Ninja, 'Enraged opponent, all is threat, will respond, follow up, kill in depleted state. Mission Accomplished.' Ri was horrified for a split second, sending the small boy to his death was unnecessary, even if it did clinch victory for her to nearly 100%, but not one to waste an opportunity, even such an unwilling and inhumane one, she followed behind the small boy, using his tiny frame to keep her out of line of sight from the man who was risking chakra combustion to stop her mission. Saying a small prayer in her mind, Ri lined up the killing shot that would make the boy's unwilling sacrifice worth it.
Rock Lee was in shock. She moved so fast, and there was something so beautiful about it, her compact motions, the graceful form and speed that he could barely follow, even with it happening right in front of him. He saw her whip something to the ground, missed the hand signals, saw nothing, and then suddenly there was a roar, as some sharp knives flew unerringly towards where the roar came from. His head jerked in that direction, seeing the large man rip his way from the forest, a strange purple aura around him seemed to seethe and rage as the man, another Ninja (!), dodged the knives, only to step straight into the explosion that knocked the breath from Rock Lee, although it kept him standing. He turned to look at the beautiful Ninja that had orchestrated such destruction only to find her right by him, spinning into such a fluid kick that he only barely registered that there was nothing to kick but him, and then, as her kick crashed into his body, his eyes met her, his head still turning to look over at her, and there was a flash of something in her eyes, cold steel replaced with... regret? Only to be replaced with cold steel once again, and then he was flying, his head jerking back once again to see ruins of a man emerge from the explosion. Nothing had frightened Rock Lee so much, as he flew, straight as an arrow, towards the hulking man, the aura around him seeming to hold his frame together, against all logic and rules. Rock Lee stared into the man's face, his eyes widening as the man, his face as cold and hard as rock, grabbed his own knife and prepared to skewer the threat, albeit small threat, heading towards him at a very quick speed. And Rock Lee, seeing the impassive face, that had no emotion or caring, was reminded of a rock, and Rock Lee, acting out of instinct, terror, and the recent memory of Alexander grinning at him, did what he had been doing to rocks for several weeks, he kicked it.