Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: Chapter Title: Rock Lee vs. Kankuro!
"What's wrong with those two?" Asuma brought his hands up to his face, grit his teeth, and tried to control his building anger. "Why can't he just give up?"
He would actually receive an answer to such a question. It would be during near chaos in the future but it would be an answer.
"You shouldn't be standing." Ino hadn't given up the fight yet. Sasuke had unleashed an arc of Chakra to cut down the tree she had hid behind but she moved on one leg with surprising dexterity. "The drugs should have made you pass out by now."
"Why do you fight Yamanaka?" The Uchiha held his arm out to his side and his shield appeared on it in a burst of smoke. "Is it for personal pride or the pride of your clan? What?" The Uchiha brought the flat of his blade against his shield, careful to keep the expanded edge from Chakra away from the surface of the defensive instrument.
"What kind of question is that?" Ino used one hand to throw a barrage of shuriken forward. The other drew an explosive kunai that was cleaved in half midway between the two Genin. She glared at the Uchiha across from her. "Just finish this fight already!"
She refused to let any of the building tears in her eyes fall. It was commendable.
The crushing realization that it was to know that all her training, all her preparation, and all her planning was worth nothing in the end, hadn't given her the slightest chance of actually winning would be crushing to most who found themselves in such a position. The grief anyone else would feel, the helplessness that would consume them when faced with such knowledge, and the despair that would drown them wasn't being felt very strongly by her if at all.
She refused to feel anything but rage instead. Rage at the Uchiha for stringing her along so long, rage at the Chunin Exams for making her waste her time, rage at the Hokage for having the village host the exams, rage at the Kazekage for entering Shinobi, rage at Sakura that was quickly replaced with a burning rage for Naruto and his clones, rage at her father for putting her in the Academy and making her think she could win, and, most importantly, rage at herself for being so blind.
"Hmm?" Naruto frowned for a moment before smiling. He seemed to have come to a decision concerning something. "I see."
"If you insist." The Uchiha vanished from sight.
Ino closed her eyes.
'I guess I couldn't do it, Asuma-sensei.'
"Dammit Asuma!" A kunai pinned him to his seat by his Flak Jacket. He tore it out in seconds but it was seconds the clone of Anko took to reach him and unleash snakes from her sleeve to bind him to his seat. "Don't do anything that stupid for the kid."
"Let me go Anko." Asuma's attempt to brute force his way through the grip of the snakes failed. They hissed, one rose its fangs up to his neck, and they all tightened their hold on him.
"Not even a chance of that happening." The clone of Anko sat back on the back of the seat behind her. "You want to go down there and kill that kid down there, don't you?"
"Of course I do." She blocked his view of the arena even as the real Anko dropped down from her perch and rose her hand into the air.
"Tch." His weapons vanished as he stood over the unconscious Ino Yamanaka. "I shouldn't have let that last so long." He looked to where the participants stood, awaiting their own matches, and his eyes quickly found the form of Naruto.
"I hope that was entertaining Caesar." He could hardly stand. He realized that now. His arm shook as he brought his fist to his heart. He hardly knew if the Uzumaki could hear his whisper as the world around him became something else. Colors dulled and brightened, shifted into shapes and then into blurs. Everything was consumed by darkness as his eyes closed and his body fell. His mind was already gone, already far away in the darkness that took hold of his sight.
Sasuke Uchiha collapsed onto his back across from Ino Yamanaka.
"Man, I wanted to make this decision a bit more dramatic." Anko looked to the two unconscious Genin before crouching down next to the Uchiha and raising a limp arm. "Sasuke Uchiha wins his first round match against Ino Yamanaka. He advances to the second round."
Medical-Nin approached both unconscious competitors and Anko dropped the Uchiha's arm back to the ground. Both, with some effort on the team moving the Uchiha, were placed on stretchers and carried away from the arena. Red eyes followed the stretcher bearing his Legate for only a moment before their owner chuckled.
"That was entertaining enough Legate." Naruto's eyes moved to the proctor of the Third Stage of the Chunin Exams as she barked orders to several Shinobi. The next match would be postponed until the arena was repaired from the minor damage it suffered.
'I've got to talk to him.' Shikamaru wanted to move over to the Genin when he was hidden from them all by a cloud of smoke.
"See to the Legate's condition. Inform me if he is unable to compete again." The four Praetorians kneeling on the ground nodded their heads with a fist over their heart before vanishing. Naruto's eyes had never left the Tokubetsu Jonin that directed the Shinobi below.
'Later. I've got to go check on Ino first, make sure she's alright.' Shikamaru left the room without speaking a word. 'I'll talk to him later.'
He wasn't making an excuse. He couldn't focus on the conversation if he was worried for Ino's condition in the back of his mind. It would throw off his focus, he would fail to say the right thing, Naruto would ignore him and tell him to go away. He was thinking clearly.
He wasn't trying to stop this.
"Rock Lee and Kankuro of the Sand, get down here!" Anko called for the next two fighters minutes after he had left. "On either side like the other two."
Both took the steps down.
'I just can't catch a break.' Kankuro adjusted the burden he wore on his back and fought down the urge to sigh. 'I fight a Hyuga in the preliminaries and now I've got to fight another Taijutsu user for the first round. If I didn't know any better, I would say the world's out to get me.'
'If life was, It would have killed me by now.'
"Alright, I don't care how they fight in Sunagakure kid, you both need to show the other the Seal of Confrontation like this." Anko modeled the seal for the foreign Shinobi. "You can complain about it to your dad later but you're listening to me now."
"Whatever." Kankuro made use of the hand not holding the strap over his shoulder to form the required hand sign. "Let's just get this over with."
"Right down to business, I like you." Anko flashed the Genin a smile that unnerved him. She looked to Lee and found him strangely focused. The proctor had read dossiers on each of the competitors the night before and the boy in front of her didn't match the file.
'I would not want to fight him.' She recognized the look in his eyes. She remembered when Gai had worn the same. She didn't like remembering what he had done thanks to it, the carnage he had behind him because of that look. 'Nothing good ever comes from that look.' She raised her hand into the air and looked to both Genin. 'This kid doesn't stand a chance.'
"Begin!" Anko dropped her hand and vanished from sight.
'He's not attacking.' Lee did not move a single muscle. His eyes didn't leave Kankuro but he did nothing else. 'He's a Taijutsu expert, he could have rushed me before I could even reach for…' Kankuro suddenly put distance between him and the Konoha Genin with a single leap. 'What the hell is this?'
For a moment, he felt like he was about to die. His mind was screaming at him to run right now, run as far away from the kid in front of him as he could, and to keep running and running.
The Sunagakure native glanced down to his hand to found it shaking. He didn't understand how this was happening, why it felt like he was dying, as if he was seconds away from death. He looked to the Genin across from him and found he hadn't moved at all. He remained perfectly still. He made the mistake of looking into his eyes and saw his death, saw his broken form, saw what awaited him in the future.
He needed to give up. Now. It was the only thing that would save his life. Forfeiting was the only thing that would stop him from becoming some bloody broken corpse on the ground.
"Do not forfeit." He had just opened his mouth. He froze. The eyes that looked into his weren't those of a Genin. They were the eyes of the embodiment of rage, of hate. The passion that burned within them was focused solely towards destruction, solely towards inflicting pain.
He was glad he wasn't the true target, didn't have such a thing focused on him.
His breath still hitched in his throat, his lungs refused to move, and he felt sweat underneath his hood. He shouldn't be afraid, he shouldn't be terrified, but he was. Death screamed at him, raced towards him, swallowed him whole.
'What kind of Killing Intent is this? How can it be so strong even if it's not even focused on me? I've only felt something like this from It or when Father gets angry. How can a kid do the same?'
"W-Wasn't planning to." His hands trembled. He couldn't stop them. "I was just about to give you the offer." He needed to get control of himself.
He had seen the Genin in front of him in action. Knew he was fast, faster than he thought possible, but he didn't need to beat him when it came to speed. He had plenty of tricks up his sleeve, plenty of weapons, his puppets were masterpieces.
'This guy doesn't stand a chance against me.' He defeated fear with reason. 'So what if he's fast? I don't need to do anything but point at him with the right attack and he's done for.'
"Don't you remember what happened to the girl who fought me? I beat a Hyuga, I can beat some clanless kid like you." Kankuro forced any fear he felt away, focused on his imminent victory against the kid who wore to much green. "You should save yourself the pain and just quit while you can still stand."
"If I was to forfeit this match, I would break my promise." Lee said no more.
Kankuro didn't waste any more time with words either. Actions spoke louder after all.
Chakra Threads took hold of the package on his back. Crow hurtled off of his back, charged forward with the familiar clicking and clacking he had grown used to hearing. Its mouth opened and unleashed a spray of senbon, coated in a new poison just this morning, from the tag placed there. He pulled back, brought Crow to a top and made it raise its arms up. He fired gas grenades behind the senbon, let them blanket the arena in a poisonous cloud he had the antidote for.
'This was too easy.' Kankuro drew Crow back further, let it hover above the ground in front of him. 'I won't have to bother with wasting anymore Chakra with this kid after that. Even if he got past the senbon somehow, all it takes is a single breath of that gas and he's done for.'
He didn't dismiss Crow regardless. It paid to be ready to finish the match whatever way he had to. A bit more blood on the ground wouldn't be worth mention in a while anyway.
"You rely on poisons too much." He couldn't control Crow, it was suddenly hurtling back through the air and straight into him. He backpedaled, threw himself to the side, and narrowly avoided the puppet as it slammed back into the wall behind him. The voice came from in front of him.
He couldn't fine the telltale signs of his poison on the Genin's face. He only found those same eyes staring at him.
'Shit.' He pulled, brought Crow back as fast as he could. Kunai fired from the palm. The eyes turned away from him and to the projectiles.
They were knocked aside with ease. Kankuro backed further up, reached for the scroll at his back.
'I shouldn't use this until the second round.' His hand closed around a scroll he had prepared. He should keep it hidden but his opponent was fast enough to warrant revealing his surprise early. He couldn't advance to the second round if he didn't make it through the first after all. 'I don't have a choice if I want to beat him.' Dark eyes shot to the cracked form of Crow that moved to hover in front of him. The kick that his opponent had sent it back with had ruined some of the more delicate mechanisms there. 'I should keep it hidden but I have one more anyway for the invasion.'
Kankuro couldn't draw the scroll out. A hand took hold of his at the wrist and forced it away.
He was thrown through the air, Crow was sent forward to slash at the Genin with blades sprouting from the forearm. He heard them shatter as impossible as it sounded.
'What the hell?' Kankuro hit the ground on his back but rose back to his feet in time for Crow to be sent hurtling towards him. He didn't see his opponent despite the fact a punch had knocked Crow's head free while a kick sent the body back.
He connected a Chakra Thread to the head, drew it to a stop, and snapped it open. The tags shifted, a fresh rain of poisoned senbon fired down on the ground. He couldn't see him but that didn't mean he wasn't there. The tags shifted again when Crow's mouth closed with a click, it opened and a fresh gas grenade impacted the ground. A purple cloud engulfed the arena in front of him.
'This guy isn't a problem.' Kankuro wasn't lying to himself, he wasn't trying to stop the fear that made his heart race. 'He's going to drop any second with the poison. He couldn't avoid it all no matter how fast he is.'
Crow's head came to his free hand with a twitch of his finger. Kankuro turned it in his hand, saw where the break was, and cursed.
"You know, it takes a while to fix a normal puppet when they break." Kankuro kept a Chakra Thread connected to the head, kept it hidden from sight with the head itself. It would be his last trick if the Genin got to close, destroyed the headless Crow. "It takes even longer to fix mine."
Crow's body darted forward the moment he caught sight of green, its arms fired off as blades revealed themselves. They spun through the air even as the cloak was thrown aside when the chest opened, seals activated, and kunai and shuriken shot forward as a dark cloud.
'Keep it together.' He heard the clash of his weapons against whatever the Genin was using to stop his weapons. He drew Crow back, let the body hit the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and connected Chakra Threads to the blades in the air. Four of them were more than enough. 'He's on the ropes.'
He had to be.
He was poisoned, had to deal with his poisoned weapons, and the blades from Crow waited for the perfect moment to strike.
'This match is over. Short and simple.'
The blades shot through the air, were deflected to the side. Kankuro's eyes widened when the Genin's form slowed. It wasn't the fact that the boy was unharmed that made his opponent look at him in shock, it wasn't the fact that he still didn't have the telltale symptoms of his poison, and it wasn't because he looked to not even be trying at all.
He was in shock because Lee had used a pair of nunchaku to deflect his weapons.
Nothing should have been able to deflect every single last one of his weapons but Rock Lee had done it. He didn't have a single cut.
Crow's limbless form rose but it wasn't fast enough.
He felt something break when he was powered back through the air. He heard cracks as Crow was assuredly destroyed. He hit the wall behind him, felt his body break stone, and everything went dark.
"Well…" Anko looked into the hole in the arena wall Rock Lee's blow to Kankuro had caused. She glanced back to where the Genin waited to see if the match would continue and she rolled her eyes at the thought.
'That kid is going to need to head to intensive care.' She appeared next to the Konoha Genin and took hold of his wrist to raise his arm into the air.
"Rock Lee wins his first round match against Kankuro of the Sand. He advances to the second round." She dropped his arm and the Genin didn't stay a moment longer in the arena. He turned and jumped back up to the participant's box.
'I liked him better when he was loud.' Anko moved over to where Crow had been shattered by Lee's fist and couldn't help but whistle at the sight of it.
The puppet was the victim of utter devastation.
"He knew what he was doing." The puppet had been broken with expert ease it seemed. She could catch sight of the seals that concealed its weapons broken by the snapped wood, the delicate mechanisms that controlled the puppet's mechanical functions were shattered, and the larger devices that had been installed were of little use.
Anko glanced to the participant's box and found Rock Lee where he had stood at for the first match.
'He's pissed.' She was certain of it now. 'He wants to fight that guy's brother and do the same to him.' She took out a scroll and laid it on the ground, forming the necessary seals. 'I wonder if that's the promise he mentioned.'
"Don't bother." A voice from beside her made Anko hardly fight back the urge to draw a kunai and slit their throat.
'One of the Honored Siblings.' Anko didn't show her shock, only gave a smile to the old woman that was suddenly close to her, gotten so close within the blink of an eye despite her age. She wasn't exactly on high alert but there was still no reason for anyone to be able to get so close without her knowing they were coming. 'What the hell is she doing here for a Chunin Exams?'
"I'll leave it to you then Chiyo-sama." Anko rolled her scroll back up in a flash, her smile never falling as she put it away and gestured with her free hand towards the puppet. "I was going to give it to him but I get why you want to seal it yourself."
"And I thought young girls like you wouldn't understand." Chiyo did it with one hand seal, the scroll unrolled in her hand. Anko didn't react when the sixth sense that had kept her alive on more missions than she could count screamed at her to kill the old woman in front of her.
She squashed it down. She didn't need to be responsible for an international incident. The alliance between the Sand and the Leaf was strained as it was, the Wind Daimyo not helping matters at all when he began fielding missions to Konoha instead of Suna.
'What the hell am I so worried for?' Chiyo walked away with the puppet sealed. Anko's eyes followed her and her fingers twitched, the desire to put a senbon through the old woman's back growing more and more. She had tipped them in poison like always, part of her morning ritual really, and wished she could use them for whatever reason.
The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up and she didn't know why.
'Don't do anything stupid Anko.' She slid her hands into the pockets of her coat, let them ball into fists there. 'Keep it together.'
She forced herself to turn away, jump back to where she had been watching.
'She's just a harmless granny.' Anok assured herself of the harmlessness of the old woman as she looked down to the arena. 'Just a harmless granny the Kazekage brought with him.' She tried to stop her shaking. 'Keep it together. She's just a granny. She's not a threat. Focus on what you've got to do instead.'
She couldn't. Her mind wouldn't let her forget the old woman's face, forget the way she moved.
'She's not planning anything. She's not trying something.' Her eyes fell to where Chiyo had stood, followed her entire path. 'I don't know what I'm so worried about b-'
A seal burned where Crow once was. Her eyes caught sight of it with ease. It was hidden, hidden too well for most Shinobi to discover it but most Shinobi didn't have one of the Sannin as their teacher for years. It was child's play to find it for someone like her. Her teacher had made her try harder when he was in a rare joking mood.
'I guess I know why I'm here now.' She didn't know why but the discovery, the path it created in her mind, put her at ease. She had to fight the urge to laugh as he eyes traveled around the arena, took in the presence of Sunagakure 'civilians' and the lack of presence of Sunagakure Shinobi in the stadium. Her eyes moved to foreign faces, eyes that held ill intent, the tension that crossed the faces of too many people to count. She looked to Ibiki, saw him watching the crowd. Saw the way his eyes would narrow, how his face would 'twitch', how he would blink, and she fought down the urge to smile. Her eyes, eyes that could see the barest hints of doubt in her victims, could see fear behind the eyes of the best of Shinobi, and could see the approach of the pale specter of death and know just how to deny it a fresh victim, took in the stadium with a new light. She saw what she hadn't seen before. She saw it all. She couldn't help her giggle. 'We're being invaded.'
AN: Nothing still.