Oi. Uber long delay is uber long. So sorry about everything. Writer's block is an utter bitch and I swear I've had to open like the last couple of chapters with this talk. Anyway as always hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
Sasuke sat alone in his living room, looking over the scrolls of fire and lightning jutsu Kakashi had given him before he had recommended them for the Chunin Exams. Sasuke had more or less learned what was in the fire scroll and was mostly just looking it over for review.
The lightning scroll on the other hand was proving to be a bit challenging for him. He knew the basics and theory of how it all worked. Unlike fire style jutsus where the user had to basically focus their chakra in the stomach to heat it up before expelling it, usually though the mouth, lightning style jutsu worked on an entirely different principle. Instead a user of lightning style jutsu had to focus their chakra on any part of the body, although hands and feet seem to be the primary focus points, and release the chakra through their nervous system. In addition, while fire and most other types of jutsu were primarily used for ranged attacks, lightning style attacks seemed almost entirely devoted towards increasing and enhancing the effectiveness of the user's taijutsu.
Frowning over the scroll again Sasuke lifted his hands, and with the Sharingan active, weaved them through a sequence of seals before focusing his chakra at his fingertips. It was listed as one of the easiest, not to mention one of the only ranged, lightning jutsu in the scroll. The Spark Bullet. Sasuke felt a slight tingle on the tip of his forefinger as small blue electrical sparks gathered there. Searching the living room for a target, Sasuke found himself pointing his charged finger at an empty glass in the next room. Imagining a trigger being pulled, he loosed the electric bullet straight at the glass, shattering upon impact.
Nodding appreciatively at the results, Sasuke grabbed the broom and dust bin and set about sweeping up the shards before heading for bed. As he settled in, Sasuke thought over the previous four days of training, he, his team, and the three Uzumakis from Uzushio had gone through. While he and Naruto had definitely improved over the course of those days, and the foreign Uzumakis were quite skilled themselves, Sasuke was a little surprised with the amount of improvement Sakura had showed on the very first day.
Naruto rolled across the ground, narrowly avoiding the shuriken thrown by Torren. As he rose to his knees, his fellow Uzumaki rushed forward to kick him square in the face. Naruto's hands shot up just in time to catch Torren's foot. With his opponent's foot in hand, Naruto quickly rose to his feet while yanking Torren's leg upwards.
"Don't you da..." He warned as Naruto kicked him in the crotch.
Torren's hands went to his injured area as Naruto let him crumple to the ground.
"You fucking prick!" Torren cried out, his voice at a higher pitch than usual.
Naruto let out a small chuckle before a foot connected with the back of his head.
"That's just not right Naruto." Kado stated as he kicked Naruto away from his fallen teammate.
Once the blonde was gone, he helped Torren to his feet. "You feeling alright?"
"I'm gonna kill him," Torren groaned, still cradling his injured groin. "I don't care if he's Arashi's brother, I'm gonna kill him!"
"Sure you are." Kado replied patting him on the shoulder. "Why don't you go sit next to Karin? I'll take it from here."
Still mumbling curses Torren hobbled his way over to where Karin was watching the sparring session unfold. Despite having gone first, her round had been against Sasuke so she was still breathing heavily from exhaustion. He propped himself up against a fallen and gratefully accepted the bag of ice provided by Karin.
Kado chuckled to himself as he turned to see if Naruto would continue fighting or turn the reins over to one of his teammates. For a moment it looked as though Naruto would continue before his knees gave out on him. Not that surprising considering he and Torren had been fighting for about a half hour.
"Damn it." the blond cursed, "Sakura you're up."
After a moment's hesitation Sakura stepped forward and stood across from Kado, Kado smiled before assuming his opening stance, noting that while Sakura took hers, her knees and hands were trembling.
"You nervous?" he asked, slowly inching his way forward. "Eh don't worry it's just a simple sparring match. I'll go easy on ya."
Sakura took a stumbling step backward as Kado lunged forward, lightly jabbing at her face with his right fist. Much to his surprise, Sakura's hand shot up and knocked the jab aside while her other hand lashed out and landed squarely in his gut. As he doubled over Sakura struck his nose with the heel of her palm, snapping his head back. Finally she swept his legs out from under him and placed a foot casually on his chest.
Kado could only stare up in complete shock as Sakura looked down at him, an amused smirk playing at her lips.
"Well isn't that sweet of you." Sakura said, her voice taking only a slightly mocking tone. "But I don't think that will be necessary." Naruto gave out a laugh as Kado shoved Sakura's foot off of his chest and rose to his feet, a small smile on his own face.
"Well I guess I had that one coming." he admitted dropping into another ready stance. "Ready to go again?" Sakura smiled in response.
Kado had ended up winning that fight, but even still Sakura didn't make it easy for him, Sasuke recalled. After the initial encounter she proved quite adept at dodging around Kado's more cautious strikes, keeping her feet constantly in motion. The idea was to have Kado tire himself out trying to hit her before she would come in for the kill. Unfortunately Sakura's stamina wasn't the greatest and while she was able to land a few punches on him, Kado ultimately proved able to give what he took, with interest.
After Kado put Sakura down with only a few well connected punches, Sasuke was a little worried that Sakura would take it as proof that she wasn't ready to take the exams.
He was however pleasantly surprised to find that Sakura seemed rather heartened by her sparring match. True she didn't win, but then taijutsu wasn't exactly her specialty, but when their training turned to genjutsu, that is where she truly dominated. Sasuke smiled at the memory of Naruto and the other Uzumaki's actions while under the influence of Sakura's genjutsu. For a brief moment Sasuke thought that Naruto was going to swear off ramen forever after he spat the worms out. Sasuke spared from a similar fate thanks to his sharingan seeing through the illusion with ease.
As sleep took him, Sasuke was sure that tomorrow he would find Sakura ready and raring for the exams.
'If the Senju are considered masters of Ninjutsu, the Hyuuga Taijutsu, and the Uchiha Genjutsu, then our own Uzumaki clan are the undisputed masters of Fuinjutsu.' The scroll in Naruto's hand had begun as he sat on his couch pouring over one of Arashi's scrolls. This particular scroll, Naruto discovered, was all about the basic and finer applications of seals and sealing techniques, more commonly known as fuinjutsu. Naruto vaguely recalled Arashi trying to teach him about the so called, "Uzumaki past time" about a year after he'd entered the academy. Naruto however had protested, claiming that he had enough to bloody work on at school and didn't want more stuff added at home as well. So Arashi had relented and told him he'd teach him about it later.
"Maybe I should've payed a little more attention back then." Naruto muttered as he attempted to decipher what the scrolls were trying to teach him. From what he could decipher, fuinjutsu could be used for something as mundane as sealing a variety of weapons into a scroll for easy carrying, to something as dangerous as creating a giant vortex that sucked up everything around it. Even the Fourth Hokage's infamous Flying Thunder God technique was the result of fuinjutsu, and according to this scroll the Uzumaki created a seal so dangerous that use of it was forbidden by pain of death. It all depended on the seal being written down properly and the correct amount of chakra being applied.
While Naruto's chakra control couldn't be called exemplary, his work with the tree climbing, water walking, and wind nature had considerably improved his overall control, so that aspect of Fuinjutsu shouldn't be that much of a problem. Naruto scowled as he recalled that his calligraphy skills had left much to be desired.
"Well maybe if anybody had told me that calligraphy would be instrumental to my clan's ninja arts I would've put more effort into it." He muttered shortly before remembering that his brother had told him exactly that. Placing the scroll on the table Naruto glanced over at the clock to find the time was 2:15 PM.
'Hmm, that's odd.' Naruto thought as he stared at the time piece. 'It was only 12:00 when I pulled out this scroll. I've really been reading through this for over 2 hours? Just 45 minutes before the Chunin exams start...' "45 minutes!" he swore loudly as he jumped to his feet, his chair knocking over with a loud crash, and sprinted for the window. Scooping up his sandals as he ran, Naruto leapt from the window and landed with a roll. On his feet in a flash, Naruto hopped down the road frantically trying to tug his sandals on his feet. "No way in Hell am going to be late for this!"
Sakura was the first one to make it to the academy. Forcing herself to arrive an hour before deadline, she had plenty of time to go over her five days of training with her team and the three Uzumakis from Uzushio. The three of them worked very well together and could each hold their own apart, recalling the half hour long sparring match between Naruto and Torren. Karin had even lasted a reasonably long time against Sasuke. Although she had seemed to enjoy the brief contact with the Uchiha a bit too much in Sakura's opinion.
Sakura had thought about her own progress throughout the five days, Whenever the group would have an individual sparring sessions, Sakura always found herself paired off with Kado, whom Torren and Karin both admitted was the best fighter between the three of them, in the hopes that it would improve her skills more quickly to fight someone significantly better than her. She smiled at the memory of putting him flat on his ass in the beginning of their bout. That along with the rest of the progress she had made during the week had just about dashed away her doubts that she could measure up to the standards set by both of her teammates.
"Had a feeling you'd be here first." Sasuke's voice called from her left. She turned to see the raven haired Uchiha. "You ready for this?"
Sakura nodded. "As ready as I'll ever be. I have to thank you for helping me believe in myself when all this started."
Sasuke smiled in response, a rare sight that seemed to be becoming more frequent since their days at the academy. "So no sign of Naruto yet?"
"Not yet. I swear he's starting to become as bad as Kakashi Sensei."
"Oh come on! I was late one time!" Naruto's voice called from the opposite direction. The two turned to see Naruto sliding to a stop just inches from them. "Just… sprinted here… from my… apartment." the blonde wheezed. "Need… a minute… to catch my… breath."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Ugh, you're always overdoing it Naruto." Despite sounding severe to her teammate, she couldn't help but smile. Naruto flashed a toothy grin back as Sasuke moved to open the gate to the academy.
"Let's go guys." he said. "We've got some chunin exams to pass."
Rock Lee stood high on the balcony, looking down at the three younger genin as they gazed up at him. Smiling that he had their attention, he vaulted over the railing and fell down to the floor, performing a single flip before landing in a three point stance.
He was pleased to find all eyes were still on him, standing to his full height and assuming his ready stance with one arm behind his back, the other pointing forward, palm facing the ceiling.
"You are Sasuke Uchiha, correct?" he asked, directing his question to the raven-haired young man who stared at him with an almost bemused curiosity.
"I am." was the simple response.
"Excellent, my name is Rock Lee, please fight me." There was a brief pause as the three younger genin looked at him, dumbstruck. Sasuke's recovered first, giving Lee a quick up and down stare. He knew that Sasuke had recognized him as the one who had stopped his fight with the bully just a few minutes ago. Lee smiled as Sasuke measured him up, trying to ascertain if he would be a worthy fight.
Next to him his teammate, Naruto Uzumaki, a fellow 'Dead Last' student, rolled his eyes before muttering under his breath. Lee knew Naruto was griping about how everybody was always focusing on Sasuke and ignoring him, and Lee empathized with him. After all, Lee himself had made several similar comments over the last year in regards to his own teammate, Neji Hyuuga.
"Don't worry Naruto Uzumaki." Lee said, shifting his gaze to the blonde, "I very much desire a bout with you as well, but for now I only wish to fight with Sasuke." Lee recognized the expression that appeared on Naruto's face immediately. Again it was an expression that Lee was well familiar with, having worn it when Guy Sensei first declared that he, 'Dead Last' Rock Lee, the genin with zero talent with ninjutsu or genjutsu, could and would become one of the greatest ninja of his generation. It was surprise. Surprise that someone saw something of worth in him.
Lee gave his younger counterpart a nod before he turned his attention towards Sakura Haruno who'd simply been staring at him ever since he'd challenged Sasuke. Rock Lee felt the blood rushing to his cheeks as she continued to scrutinize him.
"Rock Lee?" she muttered before her face brightened. "Oh that's right. You were the student who graduated last year who couldn't use any ninjutsu or genjutsu. Weren't you last year's 'Dead Last' student?"
"As smart as you are beautiful." Lee replied, eliciting a scarlet face for Sakura and a raised eyebrow from the other two. "It's true last year I was the 'Dead Last' student who couldn't even perform simple ninjutsu or genjutsu, but I've devoted the last year to making sure my taijutsu skills are unbeatable." Lee left out how despite that he was still unable to defeat his teammate and rival, Neji Hyuuga. "I want to test how far I've come, so once again Sasuke Uchiha, Top Rookie of your year, will you accept my challenge?"
Sasuke seemed to mull over the proposition in his head, but Lee already suspected the inevitable response. There was virtually no way that Sasuke's pride would allow him to turn down a challenge, especially not against a 'Dead Last'. His Uchiha pride if nothing else would demand he put the upstart in his place. His supposition was ultimately gratified as Sasuke agreed to the challenge. Satisfied, Lee made the symbol of combat with his right index and middle fingers while Sasuke did the same with his left.
'Left handed huh, interesting.' Lee thought as he switched back to his opening stance. Sasuke in turn slid into a loose ready stance, hands held out in front, left slightly higher than the right, fingers curled but not tightly into fists. The two stared each other down, waiting for the other to make the first move.
Sasuke moved first, closing the distance between them quickly and kicking for Lee's front leg. Lee's counter was simple and immediate, sliding his back foot forward he lifted his front foot over Sasuke's sweeping kick. Snapping his leg out, Lee kicked Sasuke square in the face, stunning him long enough for Lee to press the attack with a one two punch combo that sent Sasuke flying back.
The raven haired Uchiha landed firmly on his feet and glared at Lee, blood leaking from his nose. Lee smiled back at him before tapping on his temple.
'Rather careless of him not using his sharingan. Hopefully now he realizes that he'll need it if he wants to fight me seriously.'
He evidently did, because the next time he charged, Sasuke's eyes were a blazing scarlet with three tomoe encircling his pupil. Now Lee would discover if he were a match for the most dangerous eyes in Konoha.
Again Sasuke moved first unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks. Lee blocked or dodged all of them but was unable to get enough space to unleash his own attacks.
'He's good. Very good.' Lee thought as he narrowly avoided a kick to the stomach, 'The power of youth is strong in him,' That was when Sasuke landed his first punch, catching Lee on the cheek. The green clad genin slid back a few feet from the force of the punch. 'But it is also strong in me.' As Sasuke bore down on him Lee leaned back and propping himself up with his hand, he kicked Sasuke directly under his chin. The strength of the kick lifted Sasuke in the air as he arched away, and for a moment Lee considered following through with the Primary Lotus.
He decided against it however. Sasuke may have been an opponent, but he wasn't an enemy. The Uchiha landed with a thud a good ten feet away from where Lee had launched him into the air. As he struggled to regain his feet, Lee walked over to the fallen boy and offered his hand. Sasuke stared at the offering before accepting it and pulled himself to his feet.
"Thank you for a strong match." Lee said as he smiled and clapped Sasuke on his shoulder.
Sasuke stood there massaging his sore jaw before he replied, "That was one hell of kick. What's that move called?"
"It's the opening move of the Primary Lotus." a new voice announced causing all four of the genin to turn to its source. Lee's eyes brightened as they fell upon the greatest Taijutsu master in all of Konoha. Standing where he stood a few short minutes ago was his great sensei, Might Guy.
Team 7 enters the Chunin Exams and find themselves facing a most unexpected foe. A written exam! Next time: The First Exam: Cheat or Fail
