Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: Not much.
"Alright….looks like we're nearly done here." Hayate talked mainly to himself as the arena was repaired by a group of fresh Chunin after the two unconscious Genin had been taken up to the viewing area by their respective sensei. "One more match and I get to go home."
'…and Yugao will hopefully not kill me for being late.'
"Gai-sensei, my match is up next." Tenten was grinning as she looked to where her name was at last lit up on the board. "'Tenten Ken versus Gaara of the Sand'." She read off her name and the title of her opponent, the last of the foreign Shinobi that had made it this far in the Exams. "I can't wait to show everyone here what I can really do."
"Yes…" Gai looked at the boy his student would be fighting. "I am anxious to see just how brightly your flames of youth burn!" He offered her a thumb up and a blindingly bright smile that made her duck her head in no small amount of embarrassment. She had honestly hoped to avoid any loud proclamations from Gai before her match. "If it burns even a tenth as great as your passion for your weapons then I have no doubt that you shall succeed! Your opponent will stand no chance!"
"He's loud, Mother doesn't like him." Gaara looked over to the two with nothing in his blue eyes, the Genin from Sunagakure had turned his eyes away from the repairs to the arena and to Gai and Tenten. "Mother will enjoy the silence once I kill him."
"Gaara." Baki did not touch the child that stood with him, his tone did not carry a harsh reprimand either, and he did not look at him. "Focus on your opponent instead of her sensei."
"It doesn't matter who I fight, the one Mother wants isn't here any longer." Gaara looked to where Team 7 once stood. "Mother wants his blood more than anything."
"Wait for the finals then." The authority in his tone was unmistakable.
Both Kankuro and the exhausted Temari looked to Baki with shock at the actual order to the redhead. By the slight widening of his eyes, Gaara seemed to possess the same shock before he slowly closed his eyes. He opened them a moment later and turned towards the steps.
"Mother will be sated. I'll settle for her blood for now." Baki breathed out a sigh of relief at Gaara's words.
'Crisis averted.' His eyes moved to the dark haired Jonin across from the Sand Shinobi, the same Jonin Gaara had spoken about killing, and found him staring at him. 'Or maybe not.' The Jonin did not let his student depart yet, laying a hand on her shoulder when she tried to turn to the steps. His eyes left Baki and the Jonin released a breath he did not know he was holding.
'One of the students of Konoha's Green Beast going up against the weapon? There's no contest here.'
Baki grabbed hold of his trembling hands behind his back.
'There's nothing to be afraid of when I have that weapon here with me.' He closed his single visible eye and masked it as a blink.
"Tenten Ken and Gaara of the Sand are to come to the arena!" Hayate made the official announcement then. Gai still did not release his hold of Tenten's shoulder.
"Gai-sensei, I need to get down there." Brown eyes followed the approach of Gaara to Hayate, the sand that followed him earned her attention. "I've got a fight to win, remember?"
"I…of course." He released his hold on his student. "Good luck Tenten."
"I've got all the luck I need right here." Tenten patted the scrolls on either side of her hips and smiled at her sensei. "Helps that I have a great, and pretty youthful, sensei that helped me get this far too."
'Tenten…' Gai offered a similar smile.
"Such praise from my pupil is enough to make me prouder than I ever thought possible!" Gai closed his eyes as he smiled at her once more. "I am honored to receive such praise from you, Tenten!"
"Yes! Gai-sensei truly is great!" Lee was suddenly next to Gai, smiling just as wide as he gave Tenten two thumbs up. "I am proud to say the same as you my fellow pupil!"
Tenten shook her head at Lee's exuberance before glancing to Neji. She could tell he was awake after only a moment's glance. His face was scrunched up in annoyance at the noise Lee and Gai were making close to him in a way that he could only pull off when he was awake.
"Good luck, Tenten." He proved her right when he spoke up. He opened his eyes and looked at her for only a moment before closing them again and leaning his head back on the wall. "Your fate will be victory against such a defensive fighter like Gaara."
'Alright then.' Tenten didn't bother with the steps, she threw herself over the railing and landed in a crouch not too far from Gaara. 'Neji won his fight and Lee did the same so I can't really lose.' She grinned as she rose up to her feet and began to walk over to her opponent, her eyes roving over him. 'He may be just like his dad, the Kazekage, judging by the gourd he's carrying on his back. I'll have to get through any defense and keep him from getting anytime to try and use his Magnet Release on me.' Her hands fell to the scrolls down at her side. 'I've got plenty of weapons that can't be magnetized if it comes to it too. Even if he does try and magnetize my weapons I have a surprise for him if he brings them in too close.'
"You know, I'm willing to go easy on you if you want." Tenten planted a hand on her hips, fingers above the top of the scroll there, and smirked at the boy she would be fighting. "I've been dying to add weapons unique to Sunagakure to my collection. Depending on what you have to offer, I may go easy on you."
"You're nearly as irritating as your sensei." Gaara's arms remained crossed over his chest and his eyes were half closed as he looked at his opponent. "Mother will be pleased with you gone."
'…What?' Tenten didn't know how to react to Gaara's announcement but she quickly narrowed her eyes. 'I see. He's going to fight to kill. 'Mother' must be how he copes with doing it.' She wanted to curse her luck. 'It looks like I got stuck fighting the psychopath.'
Her eyes glanced to the blonde who had made use of a giant tessen fan.
'Almost wish I could fight her or-' Her eyes almost seemed to sparkle as she took in the Puppeteer from Suna next to her. '-her brother would have been a great match up!'
'I do not like the way she is staring at me.' Kankuro looked away when he caught sight of her staring at him, slightly red in the face. 'I feel like a piece of meat and don't know if I like it or not.'
"Alright, this is the last match so pay attention." Hayate took a moment to cough into his hand, waving away any sand from his face. "The same rules apply no matter what you saw in the last two matches. If you try to kill your opponent, I will intervene. The match goes on until I either call it or someone forfeits. Got it?" He looked to both Genin and received a nod from Tenten, her hands settling on the top of her scrolls. He received no confirmation from Gaara. "Hey, Gaara, you hear me?"
"Stop wasting my time." The sand in the air drew closer to him.
"Tch. Don't go easy on him Tenten." Hayate raised a hand into the air with that comment. "Begin!" He vanished from sight.
Sand ripped free of the gourd on Gaara's back and aimed to skewer Tenten on the sharp and compact end. The Chunin hopeful was already out of the range of Gaara's opening attack and drew out one of her scrolls from the holsters on her sides. She quickly unwrapped it and threw the weapon in her hand forward with blinding speed and pinpoint accuracy.
The short metal staff was stopped without any issue by a tendril of sand. Gaara did not bother with moving his arms at all. Tenten grinned as the metal staff began to hiss and she quickly put more distance between herself and Gaara. Wordlessly the sand holding the metal staff consumed it, warped it until it was a compact metal ball within a floating sphere of sand.
"That's not going to work." Gaara's eyes moved to where Tenten waited far away. "Nothing gets past my sand."
"We'll see about that." Tenten smiled as she formed a familiar hand sign. The same one used multiple times throughout the preliminaries by a multitude of Chunin hopefuls to detonate their explosive tags.
The metal staff exploded but nothing escaped the grip of the sand.
Too many kunai to count flew towards Gaara next, Tenten's hands a blur as they seemed to appear where they needed to from her person. His sand stopped each of the sharp knives launched at him before one strand of sand snapped forward, unleashing a number of sand bullets that ripped into the walls behind Tenten. She had already dodged the barrage of projectiles and another flurry of kunai shot towards the immobile Suna Shinobi from the side as Tenten dashed around him.
Sand once again intercepted her blows but the rapid detonation of explosive tags tied to each kunai threw the sand out, the shockwave of the blast responsible for dispersing it for now. Tenten quickly unsealed a massive shuriken into each hand before throwing them forward, arching in from the sides to strike the still immobile Gaara.
"Not going to work." Gaara still did not move, sand erupted outward and snatched the shuriken out of the air before flinging both into the ground. Tenten didn't let it dampen her spirits, she unrolled a scroll and two weapons flew into her hands that she threw forward.
The twin double sided kunai were instantly stopped, knocked aside by tendrils of sand, before a spear was thrown forward that was crushed by a lashing out tendril of sand. All of them erupted into numerous explosions thanks to the explosive tags on each but the sand simply reacted faster. It was a blur as it wrapped around Gaara, took shape, and hardened.
Tenten seemed to expect as much. She did not react at all to the dome of sand that was already breaking down with its purpose fulfilled. Gaara remained unharmed within and the bun haired girl didn't let it faze her. She threw a barrage of kunai and shuriken forward, blindingly fast and with pinpoint accuracy. Gaara's sand once again stopped any of her projectiles from striking him. She unrolled her scroll once more, holding it spread open in front of her before a trio of massive iron maces erupted forward on chains.
"Those things are massive." The iron balls were each at least twice the size of Tenten and every inch was covered in a deadly spike. Ino's words were almost an understatement as Tenten took hold of the chains of two of the iron maces, one set of massive chain links held in each hand.
One flew directly towards Gaara, striking the guarding sand with an incredible amount of force but not breaking through it. Tenten didn't let anything show on her face before she formed two identical hand signs with her occupied hands. Explosive tags ignited on the side of the two airborne iron maces, sending them forward at greater speed before another explosion sent them swinging inward towards Gaara.
'He has to move now.' Explosions were rapidly going off on both iron maces, sending them to Gaara faster and faster. The one his sand had stopped was easy to trigger as she twisted the chain around one of her already burdened hands by wrapping it around her arm and pulled it free. A spiked end ripped free as hissing came from within the iron mace. 'Once he does, no matter where he ends up going, the surprise from that one is definitely going to catch him off guard.'
The constant explosions from the other iron maces muted the relatively quiet hissing of the one already rendered immobile as Tenten pressed down on the still opened scroll and dropped the chains, an iron shell engulfing her moments later as her own protection. She plugged her ears and waited.
'Three. Two. One.' The iron maces met with a resounding crash before the third exploded, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. Tenten waited a few seconds before dismissing her iron shell and rolling her scroll up and putting it away.
"Did your sand keep you safe from that?" Tenten planted a hand on her hips, smirking at the smoking crater in front of her. Her eyes watched the smoke for any sign of movement. She didn't hear the shifting of sand or even the breathing of her opponent so relied on her eyes. Her ears were unreliable after an attack like that regardless. There was a faint ringing in her ears despite her precautions.
'If he survived that I'll need to use something else to take him down.' Tenten wanted to reach for her scrolls but withheld the urge, instead she waited for any movement from the smoke. She had given herself options with a spear in one hand, a red tassel hanging from it, and a number of shuriken filling her other hand.
"Everything you try is useless." Sand shot out of the smoke with the announcement of the voice. Tenten dodged the initial grab and threw her shuriken forward and turned in the air to throw her spear towards the redhead she fought. It immediately caught on fire, the tassel currently burning away responsible, and the shuriken were easily grabbed out of the air and crushed in the sand that had come after her. She landed on the ground and jumped back onto the wall where her hands fell down to her waist, drawing both her scrolls before she unrolled them by flicking her wrist while she threw her arms out to either side.
They rolled across the wall before coming to a stop but she was already falling, turning to throw a pair of senbon into each end to keep the two scrolls fully extended. She hit the ground in a crouch just as two of the seals were activated on a delayed timer.
A scroll, identical in shape and appearance to the one that contained it, fell out of each and into her awaiting hands right before the other delayed timers went off.
Trained eyes watching the flight of each would say that their numbers were over a thousand weapons, each sealed away into her scrolls. All of them fired forward just as she unsealed another iron dome, hiding from the barrage within it.
'Everything has a limit.' She could hear each of her weapons striking the ground with a clatter, deflected by the shifting sand that protected Gaara from everything she threw at him. 'Everyone has some type of blind spot I can make use of.'
The weapons didn't fire for long, a lengthy barrage of ten seconds before it was over and she sealed the iron shell away once more. A glance at Gaara showed he was completely fine and Tenten drew one of the new scrolls from her side, snapping it open and funneling Chakra to three separate exposed seals as she took hold of the end with her other hand.
Two spheres popped out from the ones on either side of the center one while a stream of fire erupted out of the center. Smoke from the spheres quickly hid her form from sight while the flames continued spewing from the scroll. Gaara still didn't move, his expression didn't change, and his bloodlust wasn't sated.
He decided to change that.
One hand extended forward and balled into a fist.
Sand erupted from out of the ground and the fire stopped when a clawed fist closed around its source.
"No blood." The fist of sand quickly receded, turning harmless as his Chakra left it to be put to better use. "You are getting irritating." The metal staff she had pinned the tag on remained standing despite the pressure of the sand but, with a mere look, a wave of sand quickly crushed the object. "You're going to die for making me waste so much time with you."
Smoke bombs crashed down onto the ground around Gaara, engulfing him in a thick black cloud of acrid smoke. Sand could not protect him from this so he began coughing, doubling over as his coughing became heavier and heavier. He dropped to a knee eventually, still coughing as he failed to move out of the smoke.
'Got him!' Tenten threw dozens of explosive kunai around Gaara, encircling him, before they detonated. She didn't stop there, forming a hand sign and the scrolls pinned to the wall unleashed a number of giant shuriken as well as a short black rod, closer to a baton, that she snatched out of the air. She ripped the wire strings free of it and separated them between her two hands before guiding the shuriken to crash into where she knew Gaara was within the cloud. She dropped off of the wall she had disappeared to and grinned.
"I had to get him that time." She didn't drop her guard regardless. She saw Hayate looking into the smoke and not approaching the arena floor so kept her senses on high alert.
She was well rewarded.
Gaara came stumbling out of the smoke, his eyes watering and still coughing. She didn't charge him and instead threw another hail of shuriken forward followed by an equal number of kunai. She unrolled a scroll and held it out in front of her, unleashing a number of blades ranging from short tanto to long nodachi that all flew towards Gaara. Every move was done without hesitation. She was determined to see him beaten and with overkill at that. To complete her barrage she reached to the other scroll, putting the other one away, and opened it. A black and red sphere was unsealed that she threw forward before a dark rock came to her hand next.
Her weapons were all stopped by a wall of sand, crushing the weapons as they struck and it folded down, but her plan wasn't to strike him this time. She wanted his sand out the way, which it did when it withdrew to encircle him, as the small sphere she had thrown behind the weapons reached him.
"Sometimes, you can't beat the classics." Tenten took brief aim, just as the sphere landed and another dark cloud consumed Gaara, before she threw it forward and dove for cover as she unsealed another iron shell.
The rock hit the ground and skipped, the skipping produced a spark, and Gaara was consumed by a fireball. The sphere was nothing but compacted gunpowder and the rock was flint. It wasn't the first time Tenten had used explosives against Gaara and she quickly emerged from hiding with a new plan involving them next. She held a trio of smaller red and black sphere between the fingers of one hand and another three pieces of flint in her free hand. She threw one into the cloud of smoke and threw the flint forward, causing another blast to widen the newest crater in the arena floor.
'That wasn't enough.' She glanced to Hayate and saw him unmoving.
She threw the second and another piece of flint from her hand.
'That still wasn't enough.' She glanced to Hayate again and he was still unmoving.
She threw the third and the last piece of flint from her hand.
'What is it going to take to win this fight?' Tenten almost wanted to throw her hands up before she drew the scrolls from her side and simply threw them into the air in an arch, unleashing a rain of weapons down onto the already smoke filled crater that she knew Gaara was inside somewhere.
"Are you dead yet!" Tenten shouted those words into the cloud, two more scrolls falling to her feet from the ends of the ones that were now empty of weapons. She crouched down and quickly brought them into her hands while she waited to see if sand would emerge once more.
It did.
It lunged at her with blinding speed and she couldn't entirely avoid it. She put something in its way instead, a massive iron mace just like the three she had used earlier provided cover for her escape. The front of it exploded as well, sending shrapnel flying towards Gaara that a wall of sand consumed before crushing. Tenten landed on a wall behind her before she ran along the walls of the arena, tags marked with a seal coming to her free hand from her scroll that she placed on the walls in roughly even intervals.
Gaara did nothing as she did so, his eyes watched her every moment but his sand remained coiled around him as if it was a snake. He did not try to use his sand to rip her off of the wall before she came to a stop, one entire side of the arena marked with the tags as she moved through hands signs.
"Release!" Water poured out from the tags and turned the wall into a pseudo waterfall, flooding the arena and soaking Gaara's sand. The redhead's eyes actually widened at the act and he moved both hands from his chest, the sand rising but nowhere near as fast as it once did.
'That may work.' Tenten drew her scroll from her side and snapped it open. She unsealed and threw a barrage of kunai forwards towards her target in Gaara. The Suna Shinobi still blocked the barrage but his sand was noticeably slower and Tenten threw another barrage forward as she dashed along the walls of the arena.
His sand followed her, floating in front of him, but it was slower. Her kunai struck and exploded, ripping holes in it that it hastened to close as Gaara looked at them with wide eyes.
'Faster.' Tenten could ignore her exhaustion and aching arms with the exhilaration this breakthrough brought her. Her weapons came faster. The explosions came in rapid succession and blasted away the slower wet sand before Gaara could move it. 'Faster!' She pushed herself faster, throwing the scroll ahead of her where she pinned it with senbon and rapidly unsealed weapon as she neared them before snatching them out of the air. She threw them towards Gaara with pinpoint accuracy and, from where he watched, her sensei smiled.
'You are truly incredible Tenten.' Gai's face carried a small smile of pride as his eyes followed the blur his student quickly became, the streaks of her weapons slowly tearing away Gaara's defenses. The Suna Shinobi seemed to realize this as well.
"You are starting to get on my nerves." He didn't panic, his eyes held a near manic gleam in them, but he did not allow his panic to consume him. Gaara instead crouched down and pressed both hands into the wet sand in front of him. "DIE!"
Sand, dry sand, erupted from the ground around him and shot towards Tenten. She noticed it coming for her and hastily a number of explosive kunai were unsealed from the scroll stretched across the wall. Individual bullets of sand erupted forward before they could do much, tearing the kunai into nothing but metal shards with the ferocity they were fired at so she clapped her hands together. She had a backup plan that she had set up a while ago after all.
The forgotten scrolls, the same two scrolls she had entered the arena with, fired off another hail of weapons. The sand immediately moved to intercept, Gaara making use of the wetter and heavier sand to continue his attack on her as he focused on his defense with the other, lighter and faster. Tenten didn't waste time with checking to see if her attack had worked, she spun a number of kunai in her hands before she threw them up in an arc. Nearly at the same time, she unsealed another scroll from the one currently stretched across the wall and threw it over Gaara without a moment wasted.
A new barrage of weapons erupted downwards in addition to the twin barrage from her other scrolls. Gaara's sand easily formed a dome around him to block the near omnidirectional attack and Tenten grinned as the kunai she had personally thrown struck the ground.
Water once again soaked Gaara's sand but it was more than before, it overflowed across the ground. She unsealed a shuriken and threw it towards the sphere of sand. Predictably, it was stopped.
She unsealed two Lightning Barrels instead and struck them against the wall to prime them. She let them fall to the ground with a grin.
'No matter what type of defense you say you have, I doubt you can stop lightning with the ground so wet.'
Throughout her barrages against Gaara, she had made note of how his sand moved. It couldn't go very far if he couldn't actually see the attack. There was an automatic zone that existed of course, it was what protected him from her projectiles no matter what she did but outside of that zone it as different. If Gaara could not physically see an attack so far away, say coming from a far wall, he could not react in time to stop it. If he didn't see it and it didn't enter the zone that his sand would automatically spring up, the sand would not move to defend him.
The defense was actually much faster than Gaara's own reaction time. It was another thing she picked up during her observations.
The Lightning Barrels struck the ground then. The electricity held within erupted out the moment contact was made.
Gaara screamed as electricity raced through him.
He collapsed against his sand, it breaking away to let him fall to the ground. The boy was trembling after the low voltage strike and Tenten grinned at the weakness in his defense. Electricity was fully capable of harming him it seemed. She just needed to find ways for it to reach him.
She unsealed another Lightning Barrel and banged it on the wall before letting it drop. The electricity was triggered again just as a clawed hand of sand shot across the arena to rip her off of the wall. It fell to harmless sand moments later as Gaara screamed again when the voltage coursed through his body once more. Tenten threw a single shuriken forward and, once it was above Gaara's head, a tag released more water that soaked him.
He tensed, raising himself up on a platform of sand disconnected from the ground.
'Lightning rod.' Tenten unsealed a metal staff to each hand, throwing them forward while tossing another Lightning Barrel towards the ceiling above Gaara and his wet sand. His sand of course took hold of the metal to crush it just as the end Lightning Barrel struck the ceiling and it fired straight down.
Gaara screamed again, the sand beneath him collapsing as Tenten threw a number of explosive kunai below him, opening up a hole for him to fall into before he hit the ground.
'I can hurt him but I don't know how to finish him off yet.' The charge of a Lightning Barrel was too low to rely on to win the fight for her, she needed a better plan. Gaara would be out of the hole she had made in a few moments. She needed a plan before he got out. 'How am I supposed to beat him with his sand blocking everything I do?'
Her mind flashed back to when his attack broke down when he was shocked.
'I could time an attack like that again but I don't want to risk it.' Her accuracy was still perfect but her arms were beginning to ache. 'If I miss, I'll be done for.' She imagined the smear on the wall she would be if she was struck by Gaara's attack then and winced. 'I can't risk that.'
She sighed when her time was up, a dozen clawed hands of sand erupting out of the hole as Gaara's mad eyes locked onto her.
"DIE!" The utter hate, the madness, in his voice was the most emotion he had displayed beyond the pain she had forced him to endure. Tenten quickly released another barrage of weapons from the scrolls hanging on the walls but Gaara's sand arms smashed into them, tearing them free and ripping them to shreds.
'New plan.' Tenten leaped out of the way of another clawed arm, throwing a trio of senbon towards Gaara that were smacked aside by another clawed arm of sand. 'Another new plan.' She reached down to pull a scroll from her side when two grainy hands locked around her wrists. 'New plan, now!' She wanted to scream when the sand began to pull her arms out to the side, the feeling that she would be torn in half swiftly becoming a fear that it would become reality.
The numerous unexploded explosive tags that dotted the arena floor erupted then, a single hand all she needed to detonate them. Gaara avoided any damage in a sphere of sand but Tenten wasn't so lucky. A number of bits of shrapnel struck her where she remained suspended by Gaara's sand arms.
Drops of her blood fell to the sand and a mad smile crossed Gaara's face.
"More." His voice was almost a whisper as he rose his hand up, a number of weapons and sharp jagged fragments collected by arms of sand. Tenten wasn't distracted by pain and so of course struggled in the grip of the sand, more drops of blood falling from minor wounds the shrapnel had managed to give her. She tried to pull her wrists free, slips her hands through the sand, she tried to do anything to allow her to fight more but it was all futile. She could do nothing but wait.
Her explosive tags were her last gambit, a backup plan incase her scrolls were destroyed or she, as unlikely as it was, ran out of weapons.
"This doesn't look good." Lee looked to where Tenten was level with the viewing platform, suspended by Gaara's sand before a number of her own weapons were thrown towards her. She spotted those in front of her coming and twisted her body out of the way of the worse of them, the jagged blades, the maces, the weapons that would kill her. She bit down and let the minor weapons split her skin, allow more of her blood to fall to a slowly growing puddle beneath her.
'Fight through this Tenten.' His student cried out when a large shuriken was raked across her back and split open not only her blouse but her skin as well. The reason Gaara had not thrown the weapon was clear as his crazed eyes followed the blood that fell from her back down to the ground. She made another attempt to free herself, somehow overpower the sand, and the shuriken was brought down her leg and more blood fell to the sand. 'Please Tenten, have another plan.'
"Dammit…" She could only curse herself, a cut opening across her cheek when an inexpertly thrown kunai was narrowly dodged from taking out her eye. "Dammit." She tried to pull her arms inward once more and failed when Gaara's sand turned to something closer to stone. The pressure on her wrists was nearly crushing. A trio of shuriken whizzed past her side, only managing to nick her and open up another trio of cuts. Her mouth was turned into a thin line as the cuts burned but the weight of disappointment burned more.
"Mother wants more of your blood." Gaara brought another group of weapons up to the restrained Kunoichi and her struggles increased when she saw what they were. Gaara's sand spread down her arms then, fully encasing them and spreading further as two other clawed hands grabbed hold of her feet. The sand spread up from there, leaving her trapped with no way of dodging. "I want you to suffer first."
'Gai-sensei…I'm sorry I couldn't win.' The girl hung her head, closing her eyes in defeat.
She could either be crippled by the remains of the massive iron maces she used earlier or forfeit the match.
"Proctor, I f-MMPH!" Sand covered her mouth before Gaara closed his hand into a fist.
It didn't muffle her screams or the crack of bones.
"TENTEN!" The shattered remains of one of her giant iron maces had been used to shatter her collarbone at the same time the sand around her arms compacted with crushing force. The girl's screams weren't muted enough by Gaara's sand to stop her sensei from hearing them and his hands balled into fists. The iron mace returned to do the same to the opposite arm and once again she screamed. Gaara laughed and Gai somehow stopped himself from attacking the Genin below him. He didn't notice how the railing was torn like wet paper by his hands. He turned to Hayate instead with his eyes burning with rage. "Hayate! Stop the match!"
"Enough, you won the match! It's over kid!" Hayate listened to Gai and himself. The moment Tenten had been restrained he had been ready to call the match. When she had begun to voice her forfeit he was ready to come down. Now he wished he had ended it sooner. "Put her down!"
"No." Sand spread across Tenten's body and began to compact with the closing of Gaara's fist. Her struggles to free herself were half what they were before thanks to the pain consuming her more and more every second, sending her down a dark hole she could not escape from. The sand was only hastening the process as it began to slowly compact, slowly crush her body. Her skeleton was becoming a disconnected mess, nothing but jagged fragments and fracture after fracture the longer she remained trapped. "She still needs to suffer before she dies."
The jagged and heavy metal was swung at her again, Gaara aiming for both her legs this time, a maniacal grin splitting his face.
It was shattered to bits by a kick from an enraged Maito Gai. Further kicks that changed the air itself, warped the wind into blades, freed Tenten from the sand binding her and let her fall into her sensei's arms, the Jonin being as mindful of her injuries as he could. His heart broke when he looked at her, eyes capable of seeing so much seeing the extent of the damage done to her by Gaara. He wished he had not trained his eyes so well in that moment, to see the crushed dreams of his student. His eyes burned with his desire for violence but he didn't act on it.
He could have killed the Genin responsible within moments, the Killing Intent he released alone had frozen everyone save for the Hokage. Hiruzen could only look on with pity in his eyes at the sight of Gai holding his broken student in his arms.
In a single moment, Gaara had ended her career as a Shinobi. She couldn't be a bukijutsu expert if her body was so severely broken by his sand. He had all but torn her limbs off, maimed her like a particularly savage animal would have in the wild. A greedy beast caring more for the pain of its prey than the food it should hunt.
"Tenten…I'm sorry for this." Gai bowed his head, Tenten too still in his arms as she slipped from consciousness from the pain she must be in. Her body was nowhere near as broken as her spirit. She knew just as well as the Hokage where she now stood. "I-I-" Gai had no words for once.
He settled for a mournful silence.
"You're not getting away!" Gaara somehow snapped out of his paralysis and his sand shot forward on his command. Gai did not move.
"Stop!" One voice cried out but two bodies moved.
Rock Lee and Neji Hyuga were bitter rivals thanks to their mindsets, one firmly believing in inescapable fate and the other in the results of training and surpassing one's limits, but both were still Tenten's teammates. Both could say with pride, even if one did so rarely, that Maito Gai was their sensei. Both could be unified to hate Gaara for what he had done to her and what he tried to do now.
The Goken and Juken were surprisingly effective when used together. A single kick from Lee was all it took to scatter the front of the sand and a Chakra infused strike from Neji sent the sand plummeting to the ground. The mad eyes of Gaara locked onto each of them but he did not act. He could restrain himself for now.
The Finals would allow him to kill so many after all. The thought of so much blood for Mother let him forget his pain.
"I will not stand for this Gaara of the Sand." Lee's voice was not loud. He didn't need to be with the hate that shined in his eyes delivering his message better than words ever could. He looked to the floor beneath his feet, saw himself reflected in the blood that Gaara had spilled from Tenten with glee.
He crouched down and pressed his fist into it, bowing his head.
'Tenten…'
"On my honor as a ninja of Konoha, on the honor of my teammate, and on the honor of myself I will make you pay for this." Rock Lee did not look up from where he knelt. "For every drop of blood you have split, for the dream you have tried to destroy, for every bone you have broken I will make you pay!" His tears mixed with the blood beneath him and he struck the ground, pulverizing it, splattering blood across his face. "I will kill you or I will die trying!"
AN: I feel I buffed Tenten a lot but, at the same time, I feel I didn't buff her enough. This was again one of those foregone conclusions since its Gaara she was fighting but I definitely feel Tenten, at least the one I created, was capable of at least hurting him.