Previously:

"Frankly speaking, you have no talent," Dosu told her. That last tap might have at least posed a little bit of a challenge if the log had been solid instead of hollow, but as it is, that was just pathetic. "People like you have to work harder," he continued to taunt her as he and his teammates closed in. "A weakling like you shouldn't mess with guys like us."

Sakura could feel tears forming in her eyes as she stared up them, watching helplessly as they swooped in to kill her and her friends. They were right. There was no way she could possibly beat all four of them on her own… She was so tired, she couldn't even move!

"Leaf Whirlwind!!!" a familiar voice roared as a spinning flash of green suddenly appeared to intercept the sound ninjas, sending them flying back in the direction they came from.

"!!?" Dosu exclaimed as he and the rest of his team hit the ground, sliding back from the force the of the attack.

"Ugg..." Zaku grunted, sliding through the dirt on his back. He winced, irritated that he was the only one on his team who hadn't landed on his feet.

"!?" Sakura gasped, instinctively raising her arms to shield herself when the source of the green blur landed directly in front of her.

"Then you guys… should also work harder," Rock Lee stated coolly with the squirrel from earlier perched on his shoulder, facing them in fighting stance with one hand behind his back and the other held aloft as a challenge.

"..." Sakura stared at his back, surprised when she recognized him. 'Huh? He is...'

"Who are you?" Dosu demanded, wanting to know who dared to interfere with their mission. Who was this freak?

Lee furrowed his brow and frowned at the scoundrels who had tried to attack poor Sakura four-on-one. "Konoha's Beautiful Green Beast… Rock Lee!!!"

Chapter 50: Condition of Usage!!

"…!" Sakura was relieved that they had been saved, but she was also confused. "W… Why are you here?" she asked Lee.

"I will… always appear when you are in trouble," Lee replied, keeping his eyes on the enemy while scratching his furry little friend's chin.

"!" Sakura said, surprised again. Did that mean he came there specifically to save her?

'Hehe… It's actually thanks to you. Now, go…' Lee thought as he let the squirrel down from his shoulder, encouraging it to find somewhere safer before the battle began. If he hadn't found that poor thing with the explosive tag stuck on its back, he wouldn't have followed its tracks back to find the culprits in time.

The four sound ninjas glared at him and adjusted their stances to be more suitable for fighting.

"..." Sakura looked from them to her unconscious teammates. The squirrel had taken up a position by their heads. She wiped the tear from her eye, so glad that Lee had gotten there before anything happened to them. "Well… thank you," she told him, truly grateful. "You saved me." She didn't know why he was helping his competition, but she really appreciated it.

"I said it before," Lee told her.

"… Huh?" Sakura asked. Said what before?

"That I will protect you until I die..." Lee reminded her as a gentle breeze blew.

"…!" Sakura gasped, suddenly remembering that he had told her those exact words when he tried to ask her out before. "..." Sakura stared up at his back, feeling terrible for how she had treated him now.

'Yes!! Awesome!!' Lee thought gleefully, clenching his fist while he blushed and struggled to suppress a grin. 'I am awesome!! Guy-sensei!!'

"And with that, I'm out," Biki said, abruptly turning on his heel to walk away. It was too early for this shit.

"The hell?!!" his female teammate shouted incredulously. What was this pretty boy thinking!? "You can't be serious!?"

"Are you betraying Orochimaru-sama?" Zaku asked dangerously, narrowing his eyes at him.

"This has nothing to do with that. Everything about this bushy-browed loser goes against my aesthetics. I can't find any motivation to continue. Just looking at him makes me want to gouge my eyes out," Biki said stubbornly without a care, hopping up to rest in a tree while he waited for them to finish. "Besides, it's not like you guys really need me for this, right? Or are the three of you so weak that you can't even take out these two stragglers on your own?" Those geniuses were the ones who decided to seal his ninjutsu. If not for that, this fight would be over with a couple of words. But, no, they had to go and volunteer him to have a stupid handicap. A little suffering would be good for them.

"!!?" their female teammate and Zaku bristled at the accusation.

Dosu sighed and took out their Earth Scroll. This was another decision of Orochimaru's that he didn't understand. None of them were really cut out for teamwork, but Biki was a temperamental psychopath with a big mouth who moved at his own pace and could never resist pouring more fuel on the fire. He wasn't without talent. His main ninjutsu was powerful and impossible to resist, but it had the downside of affecting everyone within hearing range, including allies. They probably would have been better off without him. "Oh, well..." he sighed again, tossing the scroll to Biki. "Take care of that instead."

"Ok," Biki agreed, catching it with ease. "But if you touch my target, I'll destroy this thing without a second thought."

Their female teammate frowned at him. She wished Dosu hadn't given him the scroll. She had been planning to pay Biki back for his insult by killing the purple-haired girl in a way that would be sure to spoil her for him.

Biki narrowed his eyes at her when he saw the look in her eyes. He fixed her with cold glare, dilating and contracting his pupils. If she didn't know better than to go against him, then he would just have to teach her that lesson the hard way.

"!!" the sound kunoichi gasped, alarmed when she suddenly realized she couldn't move. She tried desperately to break eye contact with him in an attempt to regain control of her body, but she was completely paralyzed from head to toe. She couldn't even breath properly anymore. She watched helplessly while he moved his hand to draw a kunai from his holster.

"That's enough. You've made your point," Dosu told him. How many times was he going to have to remind these two not to kill each other until after the mission was completed? "The purple-haired one is all yours. Kin won't touch her."

"..." Biki played with the kunai in his hand, considering his options. He threw the kunai, purposefully giving his female teammate only a minor graze on her neck, to remind her of how easy it would be for him to kill her, before finally releasing her. "Fine."

"!!" Kin gasped for breath, barely managing not to collapse. She quickly averted her gaze to avoid making direct eye contact with him again.

Lee frowned with disapproval at the way he mistreated his own ally.

'S… Scary…' Sakura thought, disturbed by the cold-blooded display, with beads of sweat sliding down her face. If that was how he treated his own teammates, she hated to think of what he would do to his enemies.

"Zaku, you can have Sasuke-kun. I'll take care of them," Dosu said, focusing his attention on Lee and Sakura. Given how the other two always chose to behave, Zaku was the most reliable choice in this situation. He alone should be more than enough to take out a half-dead Uchiha. Kin would lose focus too easily if Biki provoked her again.

'From what I can see, Sakura-san is in no condition to fight,' Lee thought, a bead of sweat sliding down his face as he glanced at her out the corner of his eye. She was black and blue all over, and the dark circles under her eyes showed that she hadn't gotten any sleep. Most likely, she was already running on empty. He needed to do his best to protect her!

'That bushy-brow has some advanced taijutsu,' Dosu thought, pulling up the sleeve covering his gauntlet and charging at his first target. 'This will be pretty fun.'

"!!!" Sakura furrowed her brow and threw her kunai at him. "!!" she gasped when he dodged it without even blinking.

Without hesitation, Lee raised his fist and punched it into the ground all the way up to his shoulder.

"!!?" Dosu's eyes widened slightly in surprise, wondering what he was up to, as he swung his arm to attack.

CRRRRRRKKKK!!

The ground cracked and clumps of dirt flew in every direction as Lee singlehandedly unearthed a massive tree root to block Dosu's explosive attack.

"!!" Sakura gasped, eyes wide with astonishment. Sasuke… Naruto… April… Not even Kakashi-sensei had ever done something like that before! 'This person… is strong...' she thought, staring in awe.

"There's some trick to your attacks, right? I'm not going to just simply dodge it." Lee said, furrowing his brow with determination. "Since I've seen your attacks before."

"!!" Dosu's eye widened in surprise.

"..." Kin furrowed her brow and frowned.

"Hmph..." Zaku said, smirking.

'But at three against one, I am at a big disadvantage,' Lee thought seriously. 'I will have to risk it… to crush each at full power.'

'Seen their attacks before… That's right!!' Sakura thought, gasping when she remembered what April had told her, Naruto, and Sasuke while they were going over their forms for the second stage. "Lee-san!! I heard from April that the trick behind his attack is sound!! She thinks the holes in that thing on his arm produce an inaudible sound when he swings it, and it's the concussive power of these sound waves that hurt Kabuto-san!!"

"April-san did!?" Lee said, surprised.

"!!?" Dosu, Zaku, and Kin were startled to hear that one of their attacks had already been uncovered to such an extent.

"Hehehe… So she really did figure it out!" Biki laughed. The looks on the others' faces were priceless.

"You knew about this!?" Kin said incredulously. There was someone there capable of seeing through their attacks, and he had the gall to laugh about that?

"You didn't..." Zaku said, furrowing his brow with suspicion.

"Didn't do what? Tell her? Of course not!" Biki said dismissively, still laughing. "She figured it out as soon as she saw Dosu use it on that four-eyes. I don't get why you're so freaked out, though. It's not like they'll be able to tell anyone else… since they're all going to die here."

"Hmph. That's right," Dosu agreed, quickly recovering his confidence. "Besides… it's not like knowing will save them." That analysis had only scratched the tip of the iceberg.

'From the way they are talking… It sounds as though April-san was correct,' Lee thought. A bead of sweat slid down the side of his face and the corner of his mouth turned up in the hint of a smile. 'To have figured out that kind of attack in the space of less than a minute… what a truly formidable opponent you are, April-san!' If that was the case, then all he had to do was make sure his opponent could not move!

RUSTLE. RUSTLE.

Team 10 had found a good hiding spot in some bushes and stopped to catch their breath. Poor Chōji tripped and fell, panting from the exertion of having to run away.

"Ahh!!" Ino groaned in frustration while holding her head, exasperated with their situation. They had only just managed to escape that Neji guy, and to make matters worse, he had insulted them before he let them go! "We can't find any weak-looking guys!!!"

Shikamaru sighed. "As I said… the only guys weaker than us would probably be Naruto's team."

"Idiot!! What are you saying?!!!" Ino snapped with a vein throbbing on her forehead.

"What?" Shikamaru asked with a frown, wondering what her problem was.

"Sakura and Naruto are losers, of course, but… even if her ninjutsu isn't very good, April's taijutsu skills can be scary… and, more importantly, they have the super genius Sasuke-kun!!!" she reminded him sternly. And there was no way Sasuke would lose to anyone!

"Bah, I don't know about that..." Shikamaru said, crossing his arms. "Geniuses can quickly crumble under the pressure of the real world." She was right about April's taijutsu skills, though. She had been the best at the academy. And she wasn't the type to crumble in the face of adversity. He was beginning to think Ino might have a point, but sweat-dropped when he noticed the death glare that she was shooting him for what he said about Sasuke. "Ok, ok, I'm sorry that I upset you," he apologized, deciding it was better to placate her before it turned into a troublesome argument. 'Geez… This sucks…' he thought with a frown, annoyed. 'You say one bad thing about Sasuke, and she flies off the handle… every time...'

"There's no way Sasuke-kun would lose!" Ino insisted. "Hah!! It's a different story with Sakura, though."

"Oh!! Sasuke's knocked out cold!!" Chōji exclaimed suddenly, startling his teammates.

"!!" Ino gasped, whipping her head around to see what he was talking about. While she was arguing with Shikamaru, Chōji had become aware of the fight between the sound ninjas, Lee, and Team 7, which wasn't too far away from their current location.

"… And Sakura is fighting," he added as he pointed his finger in their direction, shocking her further.

"!!?" Ino exclaimed, furrowing her brow as her eyes widened in shock. "Huh!?" Why was Sakura…? What happened to them!?

"Lee sure is late," Tenten observed. She and Neji had already rendezvoused at the kunai they left to mark their meeting place, but their third teammate was nowhere to be seen.

"…" Neji frowned and furrowed his brow slightly while he stared down at the kunai. This wasn't like him.

"Strange, he's usually accurate when it comes to time," Tenten said, getting worried. "Could he have run into the enemy? Now way..." she gasped, eyes widening with concern when she realized what could happen if he ran into all three members of one of the stronger teams on his own. Lee wouldn't get hurt, would he?

"Well, that's unlikely," Neji said with a smirk. "Let's go find Lee."

"Right," Tenten agreed.

The two leaf genins wasted no time going after their wayward teammate. But Neji furrowed his brow when he recalled the one time that Lee had managed to out do him during their training leading up to this exam. He wondered if Lee would use that…

'Guy-sensei… I am going to use this technique without reservations...' Lee thought, carefully unwrapping the ends of the bandages on his hands, remembering the restrictions his teacher had placed on its usage because of its side-effects. His sensei had warned him that this technique put a lot of strain on the muscle fibers. Using 100% of his muscles' full power would destroy them, which was why the brain normally restricted this power to around 20%. This technique released the brain's limiters using chakra. It was a dangerous jutsu that allowed the body to use power that was close to its limit. 'Because right now is...'

"!" Sakura gasped when Dosu started charging at them again.

'The time to protect a precious person!!' Lee thought determinedly, gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow as he formed the seal of confrontation to help him focus his chakra. He dropped down to a squat and concentrated his chakra into the necessary muscles.

"!!" Dosu gasped, eyes widening in surprise, when Lee suddenly disappeared the moment he was about to close in on him. "He vanished!!" Dosu flinched, alarmed when Lee suddenly reappeared directly under him to deliver a powerful kick straight up under his jaw to send him flying. "!!" he exclaimed in pain and surprise.

Lee immediately launched himself into the air to follow after him. "It's not over," Lee told his opponent, wrapping his bandages around the enemy ninja's body to restrain his arms behind his back and restrict his movements. There was no escaping now.

"!!" Dosu's eye opened wide with panic in the face of certain destruction when the bushy-browed freak suddenly turned them upside down in a suicide dive towards the forest floor.

"He can't protect himself like that! He's in trouble!!" Zaku exclaimed, quickly forming hand seals. He hoped he made it in time!

"Take this!!!" Lee said, adding a powerful spin to the equation as they hurtled down to the ground. "Initial Lotus!!!"

In the same instant that Lee drove Dosu headfirst into the dirt and sprang away before he took any damage himself, Zaku slammed his hands against the ground. The earth swallowed Dosu up to his waist, leaving only his legs and feet visible.

"!!" Lee gasped, immediately realizing something was wrong. 'This sensation...' He noticed there seemed to be raised lines in the dirt leading from the mound around his opponent to the hands of the enemy ninja's teammate.

'….!?' Sakura thought, astonished by the powerful attack.

"Phew… Looks like I made it in time," Zaku said with a smirk as Lee landed a safe distance away, placing himself between the sound ninjas and Sakura again.

Dosu twitched in the dirt and managed to flip over and pull himself out fairly quickly. "Haaa..." he breathed, shaking himself clean.

"No way!!!" Lee gasped in dismay, shocked that his ultimate finishing move had been so ineffective against these foes.

"What a terrifying technique," Dosu remarked. "This much damage even on spongy dirt..." He straightened up to face his opponent and drew back the sleeve covering his gauntlet. "Now, it's my turn."

'Oh no!' Lee thought, breathing heavily as he tried to straighten up with his sore muscles. 'My body is still...' His body still hadn't recovered from pushing it past its natural limits! "!!" Lee gasped when Dosu lunged at him and took a swipe at him with his acoustic gauntlet. Lee managed to dodge the physical part of the attack, but… "!!" he gasped again when his body was struck by the invisible and inaudible sound wave, shaking his body and blurring his vision.

"!!" Sakura cried out with concern when she realized he had been hit.

"Your jutsu is indeed fast… but ours are at the speed of sound. I'll show you a wall… that no amount of hard work can surpass," Dosu taunted him as he collapsed to his knees.

"Ugg..." Lee winced and gritted his teeth, doing his best to brace himself while he tried to find a way to regain control of the situation.