The stadium was already jam-packed, the air abuzz with excitement and the sounds of an expectant crowd. Most of us contestants had arrived already and by now it was just a matter of the show getting on.
Unlike canon Sasuke, I saw no point in showing up late to the finals.
For starters, nothing would really be achieved by my match being postponed, but more importantly, the view from the competitors' lounge beat any place I could have taken to hiding in. Besides, Kakashi hadn't even brought it up when I told him I had no interest in training for the last few days before the finals.
I don't know how long it had taken Sasuke to get a handle on Lee's movements and on the Chidori, but to me, that was more or less under control within the second week—probably because I had been pushing myself from the start in preparation for stealing Kakashi's moves—so aside from that I had just continued with my slow cycled upping of my physical regimen, trained my swordsmanship and refined my strategy for Neji and the invasion.
For the former, I just did the taijutsu work with a few clones to test out my plans, which was easy enough. It was the latter that preoccupied my thoughts more entirely - preparing weapons and supplies for when things got rolling was one thing, but even after half a decade in Konoha I still didn't feel like I knew it quite well enough to defend it.
The lack of central planning really showed, with the many winding streets and hidden crooks and crannies to be had.
It wasn't that dissimilar from fighting in the forest, which lent the defenders a home-field advantage of sorts, but for my plans, it imposed numerous blocks. Blocks, for which I could do nothing about, unless I was going to collapse a bunch of buildings in the name of protecting Konoha...
All I could do was take to the air and hope that the high ground of the Hokage monument would suffice.
By the last week before the due date, I felt I had everything under control. Enough, at least, that I could wind down and rest, though knowing full well that it was only the stillness that preceded a particularly mighty storm.
Most importantly though, the seal I had developed with Naruto's help had been... draining. And I needed some time to get myself back into decent condition.
It was a small wonder that few people—even among shinobi—truly pushed their stamina to the ultimate extent possible even for the sake of chakra growth, given just how mentally exhausting it was having to go to bed every night completely and utterly exhausted. Complete chakra exhaustion was one thing, requiring bed rest for days afterward, but pushing yourself to just above that limit, so that you could keep going the next day, was something entirely different altogether.
Mainly because, unlike actual chakra exhaustion, you just kept going - hovering at that brink instead of dropping.
It kind of reminded me of back before when I had been in the military when we had been out "camping" and we would spend weeks cold, hungry, wet, tired, and miserable out in the woods. Never getting a full night's rest, always doing something demanding, being pushed to the brink of mental and physical ability, often at the whims of our mercurial NCOs whose chief duty was to harden us the fuck up. The feeling of waking up with cold and sluggish limbs, the desire to just remain asleep for the rest of the day, to just not even bother anymore, the sensation of being worn down day by day, night by night...
It was all too familiar.
At least this had all been voluntary, since while Kakashi was more than happy to keep pushing me when I asked for it, he never demanded anything of me. Unlike the military back before, ninja were those who chose to endure. Not those who were made to endure.
Still, I was glad to have it over and done with.
Fight camp was one thing, but long-term results came from consistency, not from pushing as hard as you could.
I supposed it was as much due to the spiritual exhaustion as it was the physical, given just what chakra was. Even if I didn't quite buy into any of that, yet. Luckily—after Naruto's help with the seals—I had been cheating, as usual, so getting up each morning was just a matter of releasing one seal to get over the worst of it and getting on with the day.
Even so, it had been entirely too exhausting for me to feel confident in my chances at facing Neji. At least, not without some proper rest first.
So I had told Kakashi that I was taking the last few days off to just rest. I had slept in, gorged myself on food, and simply lounged about, taking relaxing dips in the pond and languidly stretched out in the sun to restore my strength.
It had been pretty nice.
Though the paltry increase I had seen in my chakra reserves I received for all that trouble and suffering I went through, would have been daunting if I hadn't been prepared for it. Though I understood it logically, it was still depressing to think about. Every source I could check had agreed with Kakashi's assessment: the only way to enhance your chakra was through years and years of training.
It made sense, too.
The amount of stamina most ninja had was already pretty amazing by normal standards, allowing us to run for hours without stopping. We were all pretty much pushing at our human limits by the time we hit the chuunins. It wasn't like we were normal people who had to prepare for a marathon, it was more like professional athletes aiming for a triple marathon or something, so the lack of immediate results should have been obvious.
So it was no wonder that despite the obvious benefits found in having more chakra, most shinobi did not actually have all that much chakra, choosing to rather perfect their jutsu and hone their control to make do with what they had.
Naruto had it so damn good and he had no goddamn idea...
This shit was exactly why I cheated.
Not to diss hard work or anything, but fuck the hamster wheel of maximum effort for minimal returns. I hope two and a half weeks worth will be enough.
As the Sand siblings arrived, I inhaled slowly, consciously forcing my shoulders to relax.
I thought about asking how Temari was, but...
Keep your head in the game, now.
My strategy against Neji was as much about flicking him on the nose as it was about minimizing my chakra expenditure—our chakra expenditure, since he would be a valuable asset, too—for the real show that came afterward.
See, if I really wanted to beat him at all costs with minimal risks to myself, then simply baiting him into a Kaiten and then forcing him to keep it up until he ran out of chakra would have been easy enough. Sure, Tenten was a walking armory and a half, but I had so much goddamn money that if I really wanted to, I could buy out all the weapon shops in the Fire Country just to throw it at Neji.
But that would needlessly waste both of our chakra.
So rather than that, I would aim for a first blood victory. If I got my one punch in, I'd win. If Neji so much as laid a hand on me, I would give up on the spot, rather than risk more serious damage and cripple myself in the face of the impending invasion.
Well, things never quite work out that nicely in reality...
I look up into the stands, reining in the urge to delve into crimson clarity. I needed to spare my chakra - and besides, there was no way I'd find myself hiding up there so easily.
Closing my eyes and leaning back against the wall, I settle into a meditative state.
I say that, but really it's the old pre-tournament jitters. I even slept kind of poorly and woke up clammy and cranky, as usual. Back before I had gone into at least a dozen different kinds of tournaments and it never really got easier to manage the apprehension and nerves.
Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost.
Victories felt hollow and defeats bitter.
There was always more.
Heh, at least this time it really doesn't matter whether I win or lose this, since the invasion will completely overshadow any of the fights.
Things slowly got rolling and I drifted along with the rest of the contestants, only half-aware of everything said, more attuned to my own thoughts and preoccupations. Without my lateness and with some of the changes I'd caused, it seemed like most of the pre-fight drama had been avoided.
"Do you think Naruto will be okay?"
I blink, noting Sakura's presence by my side only now up by the rail in the contestants' waiting area. Saying nothing, I returned my gaze to the orange and green forms down below, in the center of the arena.
Right, their fight was starting.
Finally—sensing her intense and continued look—I shrug.
"That's up to him."
Distantly, I see the proctor slashing down with his hand, announcing the beginning of the first match. Vermillion veil parts the world and brings unrelenting clarity as Naruto immediately springs forward towards Lee, fist cocked and a battle cry resounding.
"That idiot...!" Sakura bites her lip.
I blink as a perfect recreation of the first exchange from canon manifests, Lee dispassionately pecking aside Naruto's wide punch and countering the follow-up overhead high kick with a low sweep of his own that sends the orange genin tumbling and spinning away.
The crowd obviously loves it, going by the sounds of cheering and jeering.
In terms of taijutsu it wasn't anything approaching a high-level exchange yet, but in terms of flashiness, it's up there. I always did like this kind of groundwork stuff, especially in earlier Dragonball, back before all the transformations starting taking the stage.
Naruto recovered easily enough, shouting loudly his signature jutsu—probably to make sure everyone knew he was alright despite having taken a tumble by way of Lee.
"Mass Shadow Clone jutsu!"
Sakura groaned and I couldn't help but smile. "Naruto will be Naruto."
"But..." she began, half-eyeing the fight below as Lee simply plowed through a veritable horde without even slowing down. "Naruto should know better than to just waste chakra like this. Maybe against a normal genin it might work to tire them out, but I don't think it will work against someone who specializes in taijutsu."
Nodding, I say: "Ninjutsu can't outlast taijutsu, as Iruka taught us..."
"Exactly!"
It's probably because of all of my meddling, but it's still strange to realize how unobservant she is about some things. When did she realize in canon that Naruto just never stopped and that for him it was perfectly alright to throw out a hundred clones as an opening move?
Couldn't have been Wave... Probably sometime after Sasuke got the cursed seal? Still, shouldn't she have realized it after our run through the Forest of Death? Maybe it's just the dissonance between theory and practice and it hasn't quite clicked in her mind, yet.
Or then she just couldn't help herself in looking down on him. Who knows?
"Against Lee, though, it's probably his best bet. Getting a feel for Lee's movements would be hard without actually facing him head-on."
The real power of Shadow Clones was the information retention, which grew exponentially with every clone produced: not only did each clone get to try their shot against Lee, but all those on the sidelines would get a chance to observe what worked and what didn't.
Or well, in this case, everything that didn't work, as Lee managed to finish off the entire horde in less than thirty seconds and was now posing with his arm extended palm up, saying something with an overbearingly confident body language.
Words were exchanged, with some less-than-witty retorts from Naruto I'm sure, before they resumed their fight.
Sakura gasped as orange and green clashed again, this time with no clones to be seen.
"He's... doing better?"
"Mm, partly it's that Naruto's gotten used to how overwhelmed he is and figured somewhat how to compensate for it, but it's also the fact that Lee's too used to being able to knock people around."
"Huh?" Sakura turned to me, eyes quizzical.
"It's not just the clones being so fragile: most people either don't want to mess with Lee at all because they get overwhelmed real quick, or then can match Lee's prowess, using high-level taijutsu to avoid taking hits altogether..." I smirk, my eyes not leaving Naruto as he takes another bone-cracking blow head-on and just pushes through to swing at Lee, using the tree walking to adhese himself to the ground. "They say to never wrestle with a pig in the mud, because in the end you'll just realize that the pig likes it."
She blinks again, not understanding my meaning at all.
Lee jumps back and performs a Konoha Whirlwind, the force like a freight train as it slams against Naruto, who takes it with both of his forearms and doesn't bend or break. Sure, Lee has hit training posts before, but they don't then push back to leave him to land with his back turned to it.
Is it his massive chakra that allows him to tank such blows, where even Chouji was getting beaten back? Or is Naruto just not caring about the pain, trusting the Kyuubi to keep him on his feet?
Didn't the same thing sort of happen with Kimimarrow, too? The guy's bones were so tough that the crushing impacts just didn't do anything to him. I just remembered the drunken fist that followed, but I knew Lee hadn't even been pushing the guy until the bottle came out.
Sakura makes another sound of frustration.
I sigh, looking away from the fight. "Naruto's just brawling without any technique, but he's tough enough that even with it being an obviously losing prospect, he can hang in there and fluster Lee. He's not allowing for the Strong Fist's dominating rhythm to start up."
"But that's...?"
Sakura is obviously confused, but if she doesn't get it with that, then that's not my problem. I return my eyes to the brawl below, smirking as Lee gets socked in the armpit by Naruto's wild swing that he failed to check.
Didn't hear something like that back before, about amateurs being the expert's worst enemy? The fool who doesn't conform to the logic that the expert has so painstakingly learned? That the mark of a true master is the one who won't be overwhelmed by that kind of nonsense anymore...
But there's no way Lee could be a master of taijutsu yet. Not after only being a genin for a few years, not even with Gai as his teacher.
Did Naruto plan this out? Or is he simply going by instinct? Because it's working.
If Lee simply drew his kunai and delivered a few thrusts instead of relying on blunt force trauma, Naruto wouldn't be able to tank five hard hits to deliver a middling one in return. But I suppose it's not in Konoha's Beautiful Green Beast's nature to shy away from pure taijutsu, or to back down from such an honest opponent's challenge.
Finally, it's Lee who backs away, jumping back with three beautiful backflips out of Naruto's range and raising a hand to show that he wants to talk.
Their states can't be compared: Naruto is scuffed, bruised and his face is starting to swell up in places, while Lee is only just starting to get sweaty. But the physical isn't always mirrored in the mental, as it's definitely Naruto whose spirit is on the ascendant.
A thumbs up and a grin is thrown Naruto's way—the good guy pose, I think they called it?—and Lee squares up, his chakra suddenly intensifying immensely.
"Fire Gate—Open!"
Sakura gasps and my grin almost splits wide my face; he did it. Naruto actually did it!
In a regular slugging match there's no way he could beat Lee. But if it's a match where Lee opens one or more of the gates, then it's something entirely different. If Lee had instead taken off his leg weights there wouldn't have been any way for Naruto to win, but if it's the gates, then there's a chance because that turns it into a stamina match instead.
At this rate, if Naruto can hang in there, Lee burning out isn't out of the question...!
"Mass Shadow Clone jutsu!" Naruto responds, his roar muffling the wild crowd for a moment as he eclipses his previous horde two-fold.
Lee almost literally explodes forward, and despite my best attempts to resist until now, I have to turn on my Sharingan to see this! The ground shattering beneath him and sending plumes of dust and dirt flying with every step, Lee dances, and in his wake, dozens of clones scatter into nothingness.
If before they had been unable to even touch him, now they couldn't even perceive their opponent.
It's a grand spectacle—a sea of orange parted by a green bolt of lightning, bursting left and right across the arena, fists and kicks flying so fast that even the Sharingan has trouble keeping pace with every action.
And if I hadn't been watching it through that lens of crimson, I'm sure I would have missed it.
So that's his plan? How cunning.
"I love it."
"Huh?" Sakura asks, barely able to take her own eyes away from the melee below. Three times Naruto has already refilled the ranks of his speed bumps—because that's all they amount to against Lee—yet the Beautiful Green Beast is showing no signs of slowing down.
Because to him, the first gate just means he needs a few minutes breather, as crazy as that is.
"Lee is about to knock down the real Naruto."
"What? How do you know? How would Lee know?"
"He doesn't. But Naruto is pulling the old gorilla in the crowd-stunt," I say and turn off the Sharingan.
"Wha—" Sakura turns to, looking at me as if I'm crazy, when it happens.
A single punch—almost an afterthought on Lee's part as he thinks it's just another clone among others—sends a Naruto flying through the air as the horde of orange is dispelled in a single great wave of chakra fumes and pops. Lee almost looks surprised as he comes to a halt, owlishly blinking at the downed Naruto halfway across the arena. Not so much from the blow, but from the residual momentum of Lee's movement carrying him away from where he hit the real one.
I'm grinning, gripping the rail so hard that it's almost buckling beneath my fingers.
After all, Lee hasn't realized that there are suddenly two proctors in the arena.
Naruto, you little maniac, you set this up perfectly - the real one is right in his blindspot.
Lee is breathing heavily now, having relaxed his guard and dropped the use of the gate, as he's eyeing the downed and apparently unconscious Naruto, only half-aware of the proctor walking towards him and not the downed contestant.
All it takes is a chop to the side of the neck and Lee drops like a sack of potatoes—the brachial stun something Naruto totally stole from me—too surprised by the sneak attack to even react.
The real Naruto jumps up to his feet, working his jaw and shaking his head as if he's seeing stars, as the second proctor undoes his Transformation, revealing a clone of Naruto. They both look kind of surprised at how well their ploy went, and more than a little put out by the fact that Lee isn't getting up. Probably a mix of it being a sneak attack and his exhaustion from using the gate.
"That fool..." I hear Neji say as I turn to look at the still-gobsmacked Sakura.
"Can—Is that even allowed?" she asks, looking at me wide-eyed. "Isn't that, like, cheating?"
"Ninja," I reply as if that explains everything. And it should. "If Lee doesn't keep track of his surroundings to spot an obvious Transformation, then that's on him."
It's as much the fact that Lee got too used to just looking for orange as the speed blinding him, I suspect. But there's a good reason why people don't usually fight mid-Flicker. Gai and Lee have honed their instincts and movements to a level where they mostly can, but that essentially stops them from being fully able to process everything around them.
It means they become very easily lost to their own momentum.
Well, Lee apparently at least. I can't really say anything about Gai without seeing him in action first. For all I know, he'll blow my fucking mind with some completely insane exploit that forces me to revolutionize my understanding of how all of this shit works, again. I honestly wouldn't put it past the man.
Sakura still doesn't look very satisfied with that explanation, given the set of her mouth, but I don't care, rather looking down into the arena to see how the proctor is going to rule it.
"By knockout, the winner of the first bout is Uzumaki Naruto!"
I grin and shake my head at the beautiful match, clapping with the crowd.
I didn't bother lip-reading, but I wonder if there was any speechifying going on like in canon? Unlike with Neji, I couldn't think of anything Naruto would really want to argue with Lee about. Kind of a shame that Lee didn't get to take off his weights, though.
But considering that he didn't get crippled by Gaara, it's probably more than a fair exchange.
I glance at the Sand siblings, somehow still surprised by Temari's absence a month later every time I look their way. I can't see her still being in the village, which is a shame, so it's just the brothers - moody Gaara, and tremulous and just as moody Kankuro. How will things play out after the invasion...
Should I prioritize taking out Suna forces, I wonder...
If a Naruto-admiring Gaara doesn't take the helm in the Wind Country, who knew how things would turn out in the long run, so maybe crippling their military would serve the Hidden Leaf village's interests best after all?
That's, of course, assuming that Orochimaru's gone through with everything like before.
Kankuro catches me looking and his grimace turns into a sneer. Maybe he thinks I'm trying to psych him out to soften him up for Sakura, or something.
Will you fight, or won't you, Kankuro?
Whether or not he was willing to expend his puppets and tools in the tournament would be telling. If I was completely honest, it would be rather disappointing were he to go down and face Sakura now, since that would more or less mean that the entire invasion had been called off.
As Naruto returned up into the waiting area, swaggering up the steps with a huge grin and his hands held up behind his head in a faux-relaxed posture, I sighed.
There's no way Orochimaru would call it off, though. He must have been setting all this up for too long to let it go to waste. Or rather, with his failure in the Forest of Death, his desire to sink his fangs into me must be even greater than before.
The invasion was his best chance at achieving not only his goal of destroying Konoha but of also getting access to me.
"Nice work Naruto. How do you feel?" I ask and smirk as he returns a thumbs up. "Didn't even need your tadpoles, I see."
The blond scowls at me. "It's not just tadpoles anymore!"
Sakura merely looks on confused, though the apprehensive glances she keeps throwing Kankuro's way don't escape my notice.
"But forget about that! Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan! You're next!" Naruto excitedly reminds us all. Oblivious to her inner thoughts, he jumps from one foot to the other while grinning. "You're gonna kick that weirdo's butt, it's gonna be great, y'know!"
The puppeteer obviously heard him, judging by the massive scowl and kunai-glare he's throwing at the oblivious blond's back.
But it looks like his blind faith isn't entirely wasted, as the pinkette's mien settles on a determined expression. She clenches a demure fist and nods. "You're right, I can't lose here and now, shannaro..."
Huh, looks like Anko did the girl some good. Haven't seen any of her skills yet, but if she's willing to let this much slip, she might become tolerable before I end up donning my vest.
I ignore them for now though, turning my attention on the proctor.
"For the second bout, Kankuro of the Hidden Sand will face Haruno Sakura of the Hidden Leaf! Will both contestants make their way down to the arena!"
Moment of truth...
"I forfeit."
Red parts the world, spinning tomoe heralding my uncontrollable excitement. Oh hell yeah, we're still fucking on...!
"I can't fucking believe there's no popcorn. What a goddamn shitshow this is..."
The woman seated next to me gives me a baleful glare for my colorful language, but I ignore her, still shaking my head. If it's a jam-packed spectacle held at an arena, then snacks and drinks should obviously go along with it.
Wasn't Naruto pseudo-based on Japan? Weren't they huge baseball fans over there? They should know this! Or was the spectator sports scene that different there? I had never attended a game there, nor had I ever watched any of the bajillion sports anime they'd made.
But seriously...
"Not even hot dogs or soda!"
More and more people around me have begun to give me the stink-eye.
"I can't believe I wasted my time and money on an actual ticket just for a seat."
"Yeah, well, get walking then, buddy," an older guy pipes up in the row before me, turning around. "If you're not gonna shut up and watch, then at least let the rest of do it in peace."
"That's right, Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Neji are next—I don't want you bothering me while the fight of the decade is happening!" a younger man—a career genin by the looks of it—pipes up to join the growing chorus of complaints.
"Fight of the decade? Trust me buddy, it's not even the warm-up for what's to come."
But as more people begin jeering at me, I raise my hands and sigh with disgust. "Fine, fine. I'll just leave."
Hopping out of my seat, I shimmy my way past the seated spectators back to the stairs and head on up to the edge of the audience, where there's more space. Behind me the proctor is declaring the third bout's beginning, calling out the names of the Konoha's two most famed clans' recent prodigies, to the wild fanfare of the crowd.
As I ascend to the top behind the rearmost seats, I check the sun and then find the predetermined spot along the circumference of the arena, making sure to place south at my back. This way me down below knows to keep the fight turned so that I can see everything without having to move around too much. This far away, I would have to run to keep up with their turning down below, which would surely arouse suspicion.
Leaning back against the far wall, black tomoe spin to life behind the dark sunglasses I had procured beforehand to complement my disguise.
Wouldn't do for someone to notice my Sharingan now, would it?
Might think me Itachi, or worse, realize I'm cheating! This is probably cheating, I haven't actually seen or heard of any rule against it, but it's definitely-probably cheating.
Far down below, my real self and Neji are facing off, both looking to be in peak condition and confidence. The pale-eyed ninja makes some kind of grand sweeping gesture with a smug expression, no doubt trying to rile someone up.
But that's got nothing to do with me.
My job has already been decided long in advance, so there's no point in getting worked up about it at this point. Not that me below probably cares much either; the promise of one punch being enough, has already far eclipsed anything Neji could say at this point.
Faintly, I hear the proctor's cry of: "Begin!"
Both clan scions explode forward, meeting in the middle of the arena as a mass gasp of surprises waves its way through the audience—half in shock, half in incredulity—as Uchiha Sasuke meets Hyuuga Neji blow for blow in taijutsu and holds his own.
It takes a few seconds for the uninitiated to realize what's happening, but soon the hushed whispers of the famed Sharingan travel past every ear.
As expected, I observe through my Sharingan's maddening vermillion clarity, the combined Gentle Fist techniques I stole from Hinata and Neji are at least enough to keep Neji's offense locked down.
Both chuunin examinants are merely exchanging open-handed blows, inching in and out of range with minimalistic footwork as palm- and finger-thrusts fall like drops of rain from the sky.
Step one, complete.
The Sharingan spins faster and faster, analyzing and stealing ever-more of Neji's technique and posture. At first, there was surprise, then hesitation, but now I can only read confidence from him as he throws himself at my real self.
It's a perfectly valid analysis on his part, too.
The Byakugan and Gentle Fist are a pretty hard counter to most ninja, including my half-assed Sharingan-fueled shenanigans. Unless I was willing to break out really big guns and gamble with considerable portions of my chakra, there's no way for me to easily beat someone like Hyuuga Neji like this.
Even were it in another setting—like the Forest of Death in the second exam—it's unlikely that I could get the drop on him. Sure I knew about the blindspot the spider-guy from Oto had used, but I didn't exactly feel confident in abusing it myself.
Especially in such a limited setting as these open-air matches.
Seven strokes, wrist-slaps turning into snake-like whip-strikes, slammed into Sasuke's forearms with sufficient force that I could almost hear the slap of skin on skin all the way up here. But none of the blows Neji delivered were with the tenketsu of his hand, thus no deadly perfusions of chakra occurred, and the fight continued on as it had until now.
In normal taijutsu like this, he would just whip me.
The gulf of experience and conditioning between us was simply too vast.
Unlike with Lee—who had only been seriously training for a year now—the Hyuuga tutored their children from a very young age. I wouldn't be surprised if they went through all kinds of weird body modifications or herbal treatments like some kind of clan or sect from a cultivation novel, or like the kids who got thrown into the Shaolin temple to become showbiz performers, all to better their ability to wield their clan's signature style.
Plus with the Byakugan's ability to see within, there was no doubt that Neji was in, and had been in, a near-peak condition his whole life. No risk of over-training, no need to fear hidden injuries, no danger of sequelae, always a perfect understanding of his own condition and how hard he could push himself.
I was almost jealous.
Sasuke below pivoted on his foot, twisting out of the way from a typhoon-like sweep from Neji that would have swept him off his feet.
So at face value, Neji was someone who would whip Sasuke every time.
Both here and in canon, at this point in time. So cheating was a must.
Good thing that's the specialty of the Sharingan.
What better way to defend against the Gentle Fist than the Gentle Fist itself? The Hyuuga drilled it for hours every day, honing their art down into a pinpoint science of chakra control, positioning, and angles, until their taijutsu reigned supreme.
Sure, I couldn't actually do the offensive parts of the style properly—the pokes and injecting of chakra into the right spots to cause internal damage—but that did not by any means detract from the defensive utility of the Gentle Fist against the Gentle Fist. Against a harder style of taijutsu, the ability to counter and punish with a lethal touch was vital, since otherwise, anyone could simply ram their way through the angled blocks and sweeps they used.
But the Gentle Fist itself—as the name implied—did not have many such crushing blows.
It was like Wing Chun, in that by taking control of the center, it became impossible to properly deliver a blow.
Or footwork, in the endless possibilities for switching positions and guards, where until one finally managed to get the upper hand, it could continue in perpetuity. Or maybe more like a knife-fight at handshake-distance with a scalpel, where no force was necessary for the hot blade to sink in and perforate vital organs, so you would continuously throw your arms in the way and sacrifice skin for every second of life gained.
You didn't need big, strong blocks for that, rather you just needed enough that he couldn't reach beneath your skin.
Even Hinata, who was far, far below Neji's level, had been able to more or less hold him back for a few minutes with her Gentle Fist. Of course, at this rate, there's no way for me to win. You can't normally defeat someone by just defending, and he knows it.
But aiming for a victory through attrition doesn't seem to suit the Hyuuga genius.
Neji attempts to break distance, jumping back, no doubt hoping to use one of the more esoteric techniques of his clan's art—something no one had taught him but he had reverse-engineered on his own, too—but Sasuke doesn't let up, charging immediately after to the absolute delight of the crowd.
They think he's pushing Neji back with his copied skills, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
My real self can't let up, he has to keep this in that knife-fight instant-death range, where Neji can't do anything new that the Sharingan hasn't seen yet.
Besides, he has to keep up the pressure to reveal Neji to me, too.
Until now, Sasuke hasn't thrown a single offensive blow. It's not something the common people could notice, what with the flurry of hands and rapid footwork, but to the more experienced among the gathered shinobi it should be obvious. Yet even so, Neji can't just ignore the advance, forcing him to renew his earlier assault.
Maybe it's the promise of that one punch or perhaps my real self is able to exert enough mental pressure even without any overt physical offense, but it's there.
Step two, complete.
I smirk - the ante has been raised sufficiently and Neji is finally beginning to reveal himself to me.
It's a shame I don't know where Kakashi is, since he must be pretty confused by now. I did technically tell him the truth—that I was going to beat Neji with Gentle Fist and Shadow Clones—but I assume he was expecting something more along the lines of what I did against him in the bell test and just using a clone to occupy Neji while pelting him with tools and jutsu from afar.
But that wouldn't satisfy the one punch-condition I had set up. So instead I had opted for the counter-strategy.
Basically, I would be pulling a Freddie Roach on Neji.
Back before, Roach was a boxer-turned-coach, who while as a boxer himself enjoyed only moderate success, but as a coach became something of a legend for churning out champions. There were a lot of reasons behind his success, but one of the major keys was his use of videotapes to prepare his boxers against their opponents.
Watching tapes of previous fights to analyze technique wasn't anything new or novel by any means before Roach, but until then it had been simply done wrong. Most people would analyze the punches and strategies in the boxing matches, finding preferences and hints of how the opponent would come to face them.
In a word, looking at the broad strengths and weaknesses of the opponent.
But what Roach did was the opposite. Instead of trying to analyze conscious actions and decisions—which a boxer could easily change and alter to suit their situation because they were conscious actions—he decided to instead analyze the unconscious habits and ticks of those his fighters would face.
A lowered left guard when going for a cross, opening up the jaw—a double-step before a long jab—always ducking and weaving left-down-right-left-down in a consistent and predictable pattern—retreating with the heel first and off-balance when coming out of a near-clinch, and so on and so on.
Critical moments, where a single well-timed blow could instantly end the fight.
And so he trained his fighters for those specific moments in for the bout. When he does that, do this. When you see this, instantly throw this punch. When he tries to do that thing, punish it instantly...
By no means was this something no one had ever discovered in the long history of fighting before, as one of the cardinal virtues of swordsmanship was sagacity, but the specifics of it were a revelation in the arena of professional fighting and coaching.
Even I, back before, had had moments when I had divined a fatal flaw or fault in my opponent's technique in sparring or in tournament matches. The basics everyone who gets into fighting start eventually picking up. But those moments were against opponents below my level from the very beginning. Opponents who had to exert themselves more than I had to exert myself back against them, relatively.
Opponents who felt cornered and pressed, while I could be leisurely in my approach.
Meaning it was a completely different situation from a fight between two relative peers.
Two rivals who had to push themselves to their limits to match each other—who so pressed—had no capacity to spare for analyzing their opponent outside of unreliable flashes of inspiration, closer to revelations divine than man. Because just as well as I knew those moments back before, I well knew the haze of being at my physical limit and the sheer inability to clearly think, leading to failures which in hindsight I could only bitterly curse for their baseness.
Defeats, which would have never occurred had I merely been of sound mind at that moment, but did as I was too lost in the churn and tumble.
Training helped, of course. Both in the sense of improving my capacity to efficiently expend myself and in keeping my wits about myself. But it wasn't enough. Because when you reach for your absolute peak, by definition, you have nothing more left to spare.
And if you held back, playing defensive and holding out on your opponent so that you could devote more of yourself to analyzing them, that in turn also meant that they did not need to exert their full power, causing the observation to be both warped and less likely to find something of real substance.
A Catch-22, of sorts, that.
And it wasn't one you could really solve by yourself, either, because of physical limitations.
Even at rest, the human brain uses the lion's share of energy the body normally produces: some chess players back before were known to actually lose weight during long tournaments from using so much of their energy reserves, and chess boxing was notoriously challenging even when it clearly divided the physical and cerebral portions in two. So when you added in the needs of your muscles and the calculations necessary to run everything during something as complex and stressful as a fight, it was little wonder that the brain would choose to shut down pesky functions like 'abstract thinking', 'higher-level analysis', and 'long-term planning'.
Thus it became the job of the trainers and the coach in the corner to think during professional fights. To be the eyes and ears and brains for their fighter who was giving his all, giving them the advice and encouragement they needed in order to push through to victory as their bodies soared to ever-greater heights of physical performance.
It was no wonder that the relationship between fighter and coach was so important; the ability to explain your observations and plans, even as the listener was in an extremely drained and stressed state, clearly enough that they could understand it, wasn't something that could be easily measured and categorized.
Yet its effects could be an absolute game-changer, as demonstrated by Roach who figured out how to most effectively pass on these observations to his fighters before the bouts and then trained in the right reactions to make use of them on the brink.
Which led me to the topic of myself.
Technically I am Uchiha Sasuke, but not really.
We Shadow Clones were oh-so-handy in that regard, weren't we? Sharing the exact mindset and thought patterns of the original, understanding their strengths and weaknesses perfectly, and being able to pass on our observations and experiences directly in a near-perfect one-to-one fashion when we 'returned to sender'.
Even a dense idiot like Naruto could enjoy the benefits of a method like this, however distantly and half-assedly, due to his thick skull. Or, what I at least hope he was doing against Lee. I wouldn't put it past the broth brain to actually not be picking up on any of it consciously.
But damn, Am I amazing, I thought with a smirk. While real me is just so-so, I guess.
The only thing still keeping him in the running was the prediction of the Sharingan allowing him to avoid any major fuck ups.
That said, the haze of excitement and battle lust were starting to seriously blind him, the dark clouds gathering to blot out the sun and lead him astray. It was painfully obvious to me up here as an unrelated third party. Like a bull seeing red, unable to stop—or even conceive of the possibility of stopping—too worked up to step back and re-think his approach.
The Sharingan gave me a sort of clarity in battle, but it also magnified those feelings of excitability, adding to my innate tendency of losing myself to the momentum and losing my wits in the midst of battle.
Momentum.
It was the word that best characterized my preferred method of combat back before, be it real or play. It was something friends back before would point out over my shoulder as I played video games—how I was getting frustrated because I couldn't power through an enemy, how I wasn't playing along to a boss's patterns, how I would bash my head against whatever until I got through by sheer force and skill—and what I had been forced to observe in videos of myself in tournaments.
Once I got going, I did not want to change course at all.
When it worked, I steamrolled.
When it didn't, I made an ass of myself. If not in the haze itself, then later on when I was brooding about having lost when people tried to talk to me. Which was why I preferred to coolly plan out my fights before I engaged in them, ensuring that I didn't have to start making dumb decisions in the haze of my battle lust and momentum.
'If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles,' or however it went. In this instance, I thought with a smile. the saying really applied to me more than to knowing my opponent right now.
Neji is extremely well trained. The angles he covers and assaults are strategic, the attacks he throws cut off the possibility of effective retaliation while creating numerous potential follow-ups, and his form isn't suffering at all from his heightened state of excitement.
As expected from a student of Gai. Or would it be thanks to his own Byakugan being able to perceive it?
So, between two picture-perfect Hyuuga Gentle Fist practitioners—one genuine and one copycat—it is obvious which one will win, even without factoring in the biological factors. The long years spent honing the mind and body to best wield it, the countless hours spent in introspection, subtly adjusting it to match the physique and stature of the practitioner, coming to understand the intricacies and meta-strategies behind every move...
Which one of them would feel cornered and pressed and which one would feel leisurely?
It was likely that only those extremely familiar with the Gentle Fist would even be able to realize what was going on down there right now. That Uchiha Sasuke is being conditioned to always make a specific response to a specific stimulus, growing sloppier and less precise, unconsciously straying—no, slowly being led astray—from the correct form.
It was like the observations Freddie Roach could make, except proactively pushed onto the opponent by controlling the exchanges.
Palm thrust, step off-center, angled cross, counter-scoop the extended arm trying to wind, hook fingers and disable the arm with one touch. And that will be that.
From there Neji would just pick me apart after the first tenketsu was sealed.
I could see the slightest twitches—the sheer excitement and expectation there—betraying him barely reining back the urge to act already.
But he was patient and meticulous.
At this rate, Hyuuga Neji will only need one more minute to have the opening he needs to finish this cleanly. Being more familiar with this form of taijutsu, both physically and mentally, there was just enough in his reserve to coolly analyze the opponent's technique.
The very thing I'm doing, but merely in the moment and in the flow of the fight.
A real prodigy, huh.
He's worked well over ten thousand hours on learning and mastering the Hyuuga Gentle Fist style. It's no wonder he could just derive and re-invent techniques restricted to the main family.
I tip my hat to you, Hyuuga Neji. You are a True Genius.
Of course... All that effort Uchiha Sasuke is forcing you to exert is still enough to reveal the flaws in your technique. Flaws that only exist when you are pushed to this absolute extent and are too preoccupied with trying to achieve something to notice your slipping form.
The Byakugan, blinded by victory - how ironic.
I am not Uchiha Sasuke, though I was born of Uchiha Sasuke.
Call me... Coach.
I push off the wall and turn off my Sharingan, having seen enough.
"Something like... this?"
It has to be an uppercut—almost a smash from the side, just below Neji's arm so that the tenketsu and coils align just for a moment to be in the blindspot created by his own arm—but with the extended left hand, and at an angle where it's pushing forward rather than going up, and it needs to be set up with a step across his front foot...
Maybe a spinning hammer blow would work better or, no, no, footwork would be too obvious. He would just hit my back and sides. Has to look like a sloppy Gentle Fist move...
Biomechanically it'll be an awful punch, without any of the major muscles powering it. No falling step, no turn of the shoulders, no hamstring or quadricep activation, barely even applying the latissimus dorsi...
But that's fine: the power of the counter is in its timing and placement, not in how hard it is thrown.
Throwing a couple of practice punches, I seek the flow of Gentle Fist stances swaying for the optimal moment, Neji before me clear in my mind's eye. There. This timing and angle.
"One punch—set."
Time to pop, I guess.
Thrust. Scoop. Winding. Slide-step. Shift.
Lever. Winding, rotate. Right cross-over. Half-cling, windin—wind-shift-wind-coilthrustcross-coil-thrust-lever-scoop, swing, pull. Step.
Thrust, left cross-over, shift. Push, wind, slide.
Step.
Half-cling, thrust, winding, cross-thrust, coil, wind, step, shift.
Push, push, wind, shift, scoop, half-step, cross-thrust. Slap, parry, slap, wind, wind, wind, shift, step, step, thrust, slap, winding,
Ah—
The shift is jarring, like driving down the road and suddenly changing gears from fifth into reverse, the terrible feeling of wrongness bringing the world into stark clarity as the all-bleeding redness reveals itself to my red-hot brain.
The physical sensation of wrong that can only be described as gronck, when everything just stops for a moment.
—I know what this is.
Time is standing still, my confusion so great that I can't quite comprehend who and where I am, or what I had even been doing. The feeling of having been riding the storm—of being the storm?—is gone, leaving behind nothing but a terrible calmness. A clear blue, empty and spent, like the oppressively hot skies above me.
This is the boundary between acting and thinking. The line between animal and man—I just fell out of the Flow-state.
What did that one book call it? The existential state of mind and the rational state of mind? I've reverted back into the latter when I desperately need the former to keep up.
Keep up? Keep up with who?
An overwhelming amount of junk information that my overheated brain had been ignoring until now fills my consciousness: the stinging pain on my forearms from slapping and parrying them against Neji's much better-conditioned limbs—No wonder he wears those bandages, this shit hurts...!—the burning pain in my shoulders from over-extending myself with a fighting style so alien to my body; the screaming of my lungs and the hollowness of my limbs; the shaking of my feet.
Entering the no mind-state of the Zone takes you right up into the peak of your performance, to the edge of your being, where all pretensions of rationality are stripped away and only instincts may reign.
And I fell off that precipice at the worst possible moment.
The wave of intruding thoughts and sensations approach like a tidal wave, sure to overwhelm me. I know this feeling of falling, so familiar to me. It's like when, back before, I would drop the notes in a rhythm game and fail a song. It's practically impossible to get back in, at least without a break and working my way back up to that state.
My step forward stumbles, my balance almost lost.
To think I'd end up losing like this of all ways...
I can see the victory in his eyes, the killing blow already thrown. The gears, unaligned and useless, spin helplessly, finding no traction. I comprehend, but can't act to fight it.
Again, I lose like this...?
Defeatism. Bitter curses and woes of a life ago, never banished and ever-present, rear their ugly heads atop the crest of overwhelming thoughts, the very crux which separates the pure state of action from the pathetic creature burdened by so many needless and worthless worries.
But wasn't there something about this, hadn't I plann—
Uppercut.
It's like a bolt out of the clear blue, blindingly bright and crashing past all thoughts and stilling all the churning in its wake. The world seems to snap back into its regular flow with a terrible roar and for a moment I wonder whether there isn't some great river or waterfall near here—but no, it's the mad cheering of the crowd going wild around us.
I pant, head pounding in time with my heart, barely able to comprehend the form of Neji crumpled before me on the ground, unconscious.
What...?
My knuckles ache - the feedback from slamming into a hard jaw.
It takes an agonizingly long moment, perhaps half a second or less, for the memories to become crystal in their clarity. The boastful promise. The Shadow Clone in the stands. The plan to push Neji with the copied Gentle Fist. Roach-Coach analyzing the fight and using the Shadow Clone's memory trick to update my fighting style with a perfect counter in real-time at the critical junction. Winning despite myself.
One punch.
It feels surreal, knowing that I actually succeeded, just as I had planned.
The very reason why I always felt my victories were incomprehensible and hollow compared to my bitter defeats. It just doesn't feel real and I almost feel ashamed for succeeding. As if I had done something wrong and I shouldn't have won.
I didn't really punch out Neji, it's more like he just... walked into my accidentally swung fist?
Yet didn't I plan all this? Didn't it go exactly as I wanted? Right down to losing myself to the moment and drawing Neji's true self out? This is exactly the state I knew I would end up in - the confused half-man, half-animal who can neither think nor act, which makes it difficult to analyze an equal while fighting them.
The proctor walks up to us, looks down blandly at the knocked-out Hyuuga and my panting self.
A thrill of fear shoots through me. Or anxiety, I can't quite tell.
Will he disqualify me? It's obvious from my earlier confusion that Neji being knocked out isn't something I consciously did...
"Winner..." he declares in a loud voice, raising a hand, his piercing eyes judging me and all-but cutting me down.
"Uchiha Sasuke!"
"Whu?"
Which is when the mass sleep genjutsu activates—useless before my still active Sharingan—and Gaara partially transforms into Shukaku in the competitor's area.
"...Whu?"
This is the single most cerebral and high-level fight I have ever written. And I didn't really even write it.
\(￣︶￣*\))