Counter or Attack?
There was absolute silence in the training grounds as the genins waited apprehensively for their Jounin instructors to choose their partners for spars as the older shinobis talked it out among themselves before Gai turned to them and spoke. "Alright, it has been decided. We have picked your partners by seeing the strengths of each of you genin and matching him or her with someone who is also strong but in a different fashion. Neji, you will be sparring with Sasuke, Kiba Inuzuka and Shikamaru Nara, Sakura and Hinata, Tenten and Ino, Choji Akimichi and Shino Aburame, Rock Lee and Naruto Uzumaki." Gai stopped as he gave a really sparkly smile to both Rock Lee and Naruto, and they both returned it remarkably in the same fashion making the others sweat drop at the very…unique display of camaraderie.
"I can understand Lee, but when the heck did Naruto start picking things up from Gai?" wondered the masked Jounin, which was neither missed by Asuma nor Kurenai.
"I will have a talk about this with Naruto," said Kurenai with a thoughtful expression on her face. "I will not let Gai destroy another young man's social life like he did with Lee."
"But Kurenai, are you not being a little too harsh on him?" asked Asuma, he knew that his spandex clad friend was eccentric, but by no means had he intentionally destroyed his favorite student's social life!
"Are you serious Asuma, have you seen the boy's outlook on life? The phrases that he shouts all the time, the way he takes the exact same poses as his Jounin sensei, behaves like him, and I don't even want to know how he made himself a clone of what Gai looked like when we were thirteen. Does that seem normal to you, if you have not realized it yet, Gai still does not have a girlfriend. In fact he never had a girlfriend in his entire life, how is that natural, or even close to normal for someone who is in his mid twenties? If Lee thinks that is how he wants to be fine, but I will not let Naruto be like that. Do you even remember how his father looked like when he was a young man?" she asked and Asuma could not help but smile as he remembered the hoard of girls and women that always used to follow him. Now that he thought about it, he had to admit that Konoha's Yondaime Hokage was one heck of a looker.
"I remember you had a crush on him too," said Asuma with a smirk, almost everyone in Konoha, ranging from preteens to old hags, had fallen for the Golden Flash. Even Kakashi chuckled at that, they never could train in the open training grounds when his Jounin Sensei was with his genin team, and they had to use the one under the Hokage Tower almost all the time.
"Did not!" Kurenai almost shouted, how did Asuma figure it out, she had never told anyone except for Anko, who was also in the same situation as her at the time.
"Kurenai, it was not a secret at all, almost everyone in our generation knew about yours and Anko's fascination with our Hokage, heck even he knew about it, and made the mistake of telling Kushina nee-chan about it, she never let him live it down whenever she got the chance to," said Kakashi before they both started laughing, since Asuma had witnessed such an occasion between Minato and Kushina himself. Kurenai had turned beet red by now, she had no idea that even the man who she held a secret crush for had actually picked up on it himself, that must have been the worst kept secret in Konoha at the time, and for an aspiring kunoichi, that's not too flattering.
"Okay enough talk about that, let us see what our students are truly capable of, and how we can improve on the things that they need to work on," Kurenai almost shouted but she was already regaining her composure and would not make a fool of herself in front of her Jounin comrades and all their genin students.
"Okay, how will we divide the spars up?" asked Asuma, there were an uneven number of sensei and the pairs that will be sparring.
"I will take the girls," said Kurenai almost instantly while the others readily agreed, and the kunoichi went off to collect the genins that she would be judging.
"I can take Shikamaru's and Choji's pairs," said Asuma and got a nod from both Kakashi and Gai.
"You want to take Neji and Sasuke?" asked Kakashi as they now had their choice of pick among the two pairs left.
"Nah, you can take them after all you will be able to judge them better with that eye of yours," Gai was very impatient to see how the duel between Naruto and Lee will turn out, both have been requesting to have an all out spar, but his dojo is not the pace for that. "I will be letting them have at it against each other with everything they got, so make sure you take them as far away from us as possible."
"Gai, unless we go to a completely different training ground, you know that will not be possible, just make sure that they stick to their own area, or else they will just roll over the other genins and we will be the ones getting blamed," said Kakashi, almost tiredly, how did his most eligible friend, Maito Gai, ever become a Jounin?
"I understand," said the spandex clad Jounin as he gave a curt but serious nod to his long time friend/rival before the silver haired Jounin collected his charges and went to the eastern side of the field.
WITH KURENAI
Hinata bit her lip in anticipation as they came into the clearing; she was to fight Sakura, the smartest kunoichi of their graduating class and also someone who knew a lot about the way a person's chakra system worked. She awaited her sensei to call out the first pair to spar, hoping that she and Sakura went after Ino and Tenten's match. Kurenai did not miss her student's apprehensive darting of the eyes or the way her mouth drooped a little at the corners, she was nervous about facing the pink haired kunoichi who obviously had a reputation about being very intelligent and academically outstanding from the ninja school. The Jounin knew she would have to do something about the Hyuuga's confidence, but not in front of the genins from other teams.
"Tenten, Ino, you two will be facing each other now," she called as she saw both of them getting on their feet as Sakura and Hinata took a seat at the base of the only tree present in their area.
"The rules of this spar are very simple but I will recite it only once so listen carefully. You are allowed to use all kinds of weapons but if you try to maim or kill your opponent unnecessarily, you will face grave consequences. Techniques that have the chance to kill instantly are banned from use, but if they have temporary disabling effects, you are free to use them. Bloodline limits and family techniques are also allowed as long as the previous rules are being followed. The matches will end as soon as a participant decides to give up or is unable to continue. I will be the judge of that and will expect you to follow every order I give you, understand?" Kurenai' voice was crisp and commanding, there was no room for argument and the genins nodded instantly, it would not do to get this renowned kunoichi mad at them. "You may begin."
Ino instantly took the stance of the academy taijutsu as she waited for her opponent to make a move, but was a little surprised when Tenten took out a scroll and laid it out carefully on the ground. She formed a quick seal and a large selection of weapons appeared on the scroll in front of her making Ino take a step back in caution, if her opponent was a hand to hand combat specialist, she knew she was at a disadvantage, plus the fact that she was facing a genin with a year's worth of experience over her did not quell her fears either. Ino blinked and suddenly there were three weapons coming at her, she jumped back to avoid them but more joined the first three soon it was all she could do to keep dodging them, much less find holes in the attacks and counter her opponent. The blonde quickly realized that Tenten had strings attached to her weapons, and saw a way to disable them so that she could get close enough to attack her with her family technique. She pulled out a kunai and started to run at her opponent, flanking the barrage of weapons. At first Tenten just thought that the Yamanaka was coming to attack her directly but soon realized her mistake as she saw the blonde change her directions immediately and started to cut thorough the wires that connected Tenten to her weapons.
The weapons' specialist cursed silently before picking up two scimitars and charged at the blonde knowing that few Jounins and ANBU were the only ones that could exceed her skill in melee as far as weapons were concerned. As she engaged her opponent, it became painfully obvious to the watchers that Ino stood very little hope of ever beating her opponent, especially when she had Ino cornered and beating her effortlessly like that. Hinata and Sakura watched open mouthed at the way Tenten disarmed Ino and had a blade resting against her collarbone in less than a minute. What surprised the kunoichis even more though was when Ino gave Tenten a small smile before giving her hand a rough kick and by the time Tenten had picked up the blade, there was already several meters of distance between her and the Yamanaka heiress. "Well, she is quicker than I anticipated; I guess I will just have to use that," she thought before she pulled out a pair of scrolls, these two were larger than the previous one she had used.
Tenten gave a small smirk before throwing the scrolls in the air and shouted "Twin Rising Dragons!" As the scrolls unfurled in the air, she jumped up and as weapons started to appear, one by one Tenten started to throw those at Ino with perfect accuracy and control, there was no way that the newly promoted genin was getting out of it and soon enough she was on her knees out of breath, chakra, and completely exhausted from trying to dodge the huge amounts of weapons that were coming at her.
"Stop!" Kurenai's voice rang clearly in the air and Tenten immediately stopped het attacks and quickly retracted all her weapons into the scroll. As the red eyed kunoichi came to check on the Yamanaka heiress, she was a little surprised to see her conscious, but she was drenched in sweat and it was clear that she was in no condition to move without aid. "A valiant effort Ino, well done. I am impressed that you kept on trying until your body gave up on you, but your sprit is undeniable. Asuma is indeed lucky to have a student with as much will power as you, and I will make sure that he trains you well so that you reach your full potential. Tenten, as for you, I see that you are a very well trained Kunoichi and an even more impressive weapons handler. Keep at it and someday you might be known as the Weapons Mistress of Konoha yourself, good job. It was not really a contest, Ino, she has more experience and training than you do, but you were able to keep up with her, even for a while makes you a talented Genin indeed. Rest now both of you; it is time to see how your fellow kunoichis perform. Hinata, Sakura you two are up." The Genjutsus Mistress turned to see the other two genins getting prepared to face each other, both of them determined to give their best after seeing the zeal of their classmate against a stronger foe. The Jounin smiled; maybe Ino would make a nice friend and a good influence on Hinata. "Same rules as the previous fight apply, ready? You may begin."
Sakura stared intently as her opponent's body structure. She was in the stance of the traditional Hyuuga fighting style known as the Gentle Fist. "Byakugan!" Hinata's eyes changed to that of a typical Hyuuga who has his/her bloodline activated. The only time Sakura remembered seeing that was when a Hyuuga had come to their class to demonstrate how the Byakugan works and the advantages it grants to the user. Along with a high range of vision starting from thirty or forty meters up to as far as fifteen kilometers, but that kind of ability was only gained through extreme training and a high use of chakra, something she was sure that Hinata did not possess yet. Along with that they gained the three sixty degree vision as well as the ability to see the chakra coils and the tenketsus of a person allowing them to block it temporarily to disable that person's chakra usage, a devastating ability to say the least. The young Haruno knew that she was facing a fearsome opponent but she also knew that Hinata had recently regained the ability to activate her ocular powers and if she used her own techniques smartly, she could beat Hinata.
The Hyuuga instantly noted the movement in Sakura's muscles as her shins tightened; her pink haired opponent was going to attack. As Sakura charged at her, she instantly saw the holes in her defense and moved to counter. Unlike other Hyuuga children from the main branch of the family, Hinata was also trained in the Hyuuga style of taijutsu from a very young age, and even though her Byakugan was not as strong as her sister's or her cousin's, her taijutsu form was flawless, while not as power based as that of Neji's her own uniqueness in the style granted her more flexibility and speed giving her a rather large edge over kunoichis her age. Hinata easily countered Sakura's basic stances and katas with ease before beginning he own more advanced forms of katas on the Haruno. Sakura instantly realized that she was at a massive disadvantage against Hinata in close combat and immediately started working on putting some distance between herself and her opponent. As the pink haired kunoichi fought against the Hyuuga heiress, she quickly realized that her shy nature also reflected on her fighting style. She was never one to begin the advances on an opponent and always responded only when attacked. This, Sakura realized, was an advantage on her part.
Putting a few meters distance between herself and the purple haired kunoichi, Sakura quickly went through a series of hand seals as she cast a two layer genjutsu on her opponent. At first, Kurenai dismissed Sakura's attempts at the sensed distortion technique but quickly grew concerned when she realized what the genin was doing. The Byakugan could pierce through a regular genjutsu without too much trouble but only strong users of the Byakugan can see through double or triple layered genjutsus, and since Hinata had only recently activated the use of her ocular powers, Kurenai knew that she could not pierce through the second veil of the Haruno's technique. As soon as Sakura was done, she charged in again this time knowing that she had a certain advantage over her opponent. As Hinata saw her opponent approach, she wondered why Sakura would attempt the same trick twice especially since she knew that Hinata was better than her at hand to hand combat. But she did not have the time to dwell on it too long since her pink haired opponent was almost upon her and she relinquished her doubts and moved to attack.
Surprisingly she missed her punch and got a rather powerful hit to the face driving her back a few steps from Sakura. But she was not done yet, Sakura pounced immediately as she saw her opponent reel and stumble back from her. She followed her attack with a kick to her stomach before flipping away from her and using her momentum to land a flying back kick that clipped Hinata's chin making her land on her rear with a stunned look crossing her face.
"Yeah, go Sakura!" Ino cheered from her spot at the base of a tree, waving her hands to emphasize her enthusiasm for her friend. Sakura turned to her and gave a smile before turning back.
Shaking her head to clear the buzzing noise she was hearing, she quickly stood up and covertly formed a hand seal and muttered "Kai!" to get out of any genjutsus suspecting that Sakura had cast one on her since she had missed her punch at nearly point blank range. Having Kurenai as a sensei was advantageous because the first thing she taught her genins was how to dispel a genjutsu and the possible ways to know if they were under any. Sakura, not realizing that Hinata was now out her genjutsu, charged once more, this time determined to end the fight, got a good surprise as Hinata weaved in and out of her attacks artfully dodging them, until she was mere inches from her face. "You are in my field of divination." Sakura's eyes widened, she knew she was about to get into a world of pain, and even though she tried to put a little distance between herself and Hinata, it was already too late. The young Hyuuga heiress had already started her attacks. "Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven," Hinata attacked. "Two palms, four palms, eight palms, sixteen palms, thirty two palms, sixty four palms!" Sakura fell on the grass, her body was completely numb, she had no feelings in any part of her body, and Hinata's strikes were agonizingly painful before that part of her body had gone numb. She quickly realized that in this fight, she was completely outclassed in every sense of the word.
"Damn it, why am I the only one that is weak here? Everyone is stronger than me, even Ino performed better than me against a highly trained opponent like Tenten!" thought Sakura as anguish filled her heart. She knew that before she had not trained as much as some of her classmates but she still had to work hard to get where she was currently and she had also devoted a lot of time on studying the books that they had tests on. It was not fair that people from clans got trained from an earlier age; obviously they had better chances of advancing among the shinobi world because they had an edge from the very beginning. But she knew that training was the only way that she was going to get anywhere, and silently vowed to herself that she would ask Kakashi-sensei to train her as hard as possible so she became as strong as she possibly could under his tutelage as a genin.
"My gosh Sakura that was an impressive and impeccable display of genjutsu usage, who taught you to cast multiple layered illusions like that?" asked Kurenai as she came into the pink haired Kunoichi's field of vision before helping her get to her feet so she could rest next to Ino and Tenten.
"Yes S-Sakura-san, that was a very strong genjutsu t-that you used, I would h-have lost if not for the Byakugan," said Hinata with an apologetic smile as she also sat down next to Sakura to regain her breath.
"Yeah that was pretty amazing Sakura," said Ino as she gave a tired smile to her best friend, who returned it with a nod.
"Thanks Kurenai-sensei, Ino, Hinata," said Sakura as she gave a nod to both of them before turning towards the Jounin once more. "Nobody really taught me how to use a genjutsu, I picked these small ones that I can perform from the academy library and learned them by practicing by myself." The red eyed kunoichi shook her head in astonishment that was quite a feat for any genin to be able to do without help form a superior. Maybe, Sakura was also a genjutsus specialist just like herself. She was drawn out of her thoughts as she heard a rather massive explosion coming from another side of the battlefield.
"Well I have a feeling that not all of the spars are done yet, so you four still have time to rest up. We will go back to meet the others in an hour, so for now eat these and regain your strength," said Kurenai turning back to her charges and handing each of them an energy bar.
WITH ASUMA
Asuma popped a cigarette into his mouth as he eyed the opponents of his students for the match. Shino, much like any Aburame he had met before, was stoic and observant. There are very few members from that clan, if any that showed emotions, attachment or any other form of what was in their hearts on their faces or body language. The Sarutobi still did not know the reasons behind the use so heavy sunglasses for the bug users. All in all that clan was very secretive about their clan's abilities or their unique connections with bugs and how they made it possible for bugs to live in their bodies, for hives and survive by feeding off their own chakra. On the other hand, there was the heir to the Inuzuka clan, a clan that practically every elemental nation by now knew of their unique connection to canines. Due to their unique collaboration abilities between humans and dogs, they had some enhanced physical characteristics such as hearing much better than regular humans, the ability to increase their sense of smell and their ability to taste a food and tell what components it has been made of. Due to these abilities, they tended to form good adversary for any ninja, and his own students were no exception.
"Alright Kiba, Shikamaru, let's begin. As for the rules, it is the same as the sparring rules in the academy." The Jounin waited as Kiba walked out into the center with an eager smile on his face while his student faced him with the usual bored expression on his face, while muttering something under his breath, that Asuma could not help but feel whether it was the Nara's favorite word 'troublesome' or not. "Ready?" he waited as both the participants nodded. "Begin."
"Alright boy, time to get serious," Kiba said as he set his dog down before forming a hand sign. Kiba quickly gathered chakra before charging at the still bored looking Shikamaru that was until suddenly he could not move at all. He looked down to see his and Shikamaru's shadows connected in a straight line. The Inuzuka cursed creatively until his opponent spoke up.
"Shadow Possession, success! Seriously Kiba, you know about my bloodline, why would you attack in a straight line?" he asked but only got a smirk in response.
"Because you were too busy only paying attention to me," replied the boy with red tattoos on his face and suddenly Shikamaru realized that Akamaru was not where Kiba had put him down on the ground. In fact, the puppy was nowhere in sight. Sensing movement behind him, the Nara turned just in time to see the white furred dog hurtling towards him at an alarming speed before slamming into his stomach with so much force that they both landed several feet away from their previous positions. The nin-dog gave an affirming bark as he rolled off Shikamaru's body and ran towards his companion who was giving him a pat on the head. "Good boy," said the Inuzuka before turning back to Shikamaru who was slowly getting to his feet, wincing with every movement, and glumly noted that Kiba was free from his shadow possession since Akamaru had broken his concentration when he had literally body slammed the Nara quite painfully to his stomach.
"Well, as you now know, unless you catch us both in shadow possession together, there will always be one more threat that you have to look out for, and if I am not wrong, once your shadow possession is active you cannot move as freely as without." The Inuzuka heir's assessment about the Nara technique was quite right, and Shikamaru grimaced as he realized that his opponent has figured out about his favored technique's weakness. He slowly raised his hand.
"I give up." It was all Asuma could do to not slap himself as Kiba's expression changed from smug to stunned, before he broke out in raucous laughter and started rolling on the ground not able to contain his amusement at his friend's laziness. With a sigh the Sarutobi motioned for the other two genins to take the field as Shikamaru and Kiba went back to sit down and watch, the latter still snickering at the easy win he got.
"You know the rules so get started," said Asuma before moving back to his original position to watch and judge. The ones sparring immediately went for their most favored jutsus as Shino summoned his bugs and they swarmed out of the sleeves of his coat, and Choji tucked his limbs into his body before charging at his opponent performing the 'Human Bullet Tank' technique. The Aburame was easily able to dodge his attacks but his bugs also had the same amount of success of Choji. The Akimichi seemed to just bulldozer over his bugs while never being able to make contact as Shino deftly dodged all his charging attacks since he was only moving in straight lines. This went on for quite a while and by the end both the genins were panting, Choji due to having his chakra levels lowered, while Shino because he had exhausted most of the chakra in his bugs and therefore could not use their swarms as effectively as before.
"Alright that's a draw," called out Asuma as he noticed that both the combatants were close to their limits yet they had not been able to land a single good hit on the other in the last twenty minutes.
"Well now what?" asked Shikamaru from his spot by the tree, making Kiba nearly jump away from him in fright. The Inuzuka had really though that the pineapple top haired boy was asleep since he had put his head in his hands mere seconds after Choji's and Shino's spar began.
"I don't know, why don't you rest up and then we will get back to the meeting place where I can talk with the others about the spars and you guys can hang out or whatever, there is not much time left for a mission or practice either," said Asuma as he pulled out another cigarette before lighting it. "I have to get a new lighter," thought the bearded man. "This one is getting rusty."
WITH KAKASHI
"Oh boy," thought the masked Jounin as he saw the two prodigies eye balling each other all the way towards their designated area in the training grounds. "This better not turn into an all out ego fight, or else Sasuke will be too long in the hospital for Team Seven to continue being a team," thought Kakashi grimly. As they reached their sparring spot, the silver haired ninja thought it was crucial that he diffused the environment before the spar began. By the looks of it his charges, as they stood now, seemed ready to kill each other at a moment's notice.
"Say, do you guys wanna rest a little before getting started with this spar?" asked Kakashi a little too cheerfully for the Genins' liking. While Neji just settled to give him an odd looking, Sasuke was giving him the Uchiha's most famous death glare. "Well since some of the other Jounins got two pairs, I am sure all of us will not be done anytime soon. You guys could take a few moments to prepare before starting your spar, eh?" It seemed that all his efforts were in vain.
"I want to get this done as soon as possible so I can go watch the dope's spar," Sasuke said in a flat voice.
"Indeed, I would like to watch their duel as well," commented the Hyuuga making Kakashi face-palm himself. There was no hope for these two, oh well.
"Fine, then get ready. The rules are the same ones as the academy spars, if you break them or even attempt to break them, your shinobi license will be revoked, by express orders of a Jounin, and you will be restricted to the village boundaries only. Is that clear?" his tone was cold and unforgiving, and even though both his juniors in rank looked a little disappointed, they nodded.
"You may begin."
Sasuke and Neji got into their respective stances as each waited for the other to make the first move. Neji's ability and control over his ocular powers were very high, even for a fully grown Hyuuga shinobi, but he also knew not to underestimate his opponent. Many in the village had heard rumors that this young man was a genius the likes of which was only seen once in a generation, and though Neji thought that these remarks were inflated, he had seen some of Sasuke's spars against his classmates when he was in the academy only a year ago, and by no means was the Uchiha shabby when it came to skills as a shinobi at all. Both the opponents stayed still for several minutes until Sasuke had enough. Throwing a few shurikens, the raven haired boy followed to attack, only to find his opponent was not where he had thought he would be. Sasuke jumped to the side, as he heard whistling sounds and saw that he had dodges the same shurikens that he had thrown at the Hyuuga only seconds ago.
Neji knew that attacking Sasuke with his Gentle Fist would not be useful as the opponent was still fresh and would have the stamina to dodge his tenketsu blocking strikes, so he used the one thing that he knew he had an edge over on Sasuke, stamina. Charging at the raven haired boy, Neji engaged him in a fierce taijutsu battle and the Hyuuga's opponent held his own admirably well, and even Kakashi had to admit, even though these two were had only crossed a little over a decade in age, their skills spoke of experience and a battle-sense that were usually found in shinobis older than them, they were good…for average ninjas. The Hyuuga attacked relentless, and although Sasuke was fighting evenly, his knew he could not keep up the pace he was using against his opponent for long, and as of yet Neji still had to break a sweat as his expressionless face showed that he was not feeling fatigued in the least. "At least Lee's unlimited enthusiasm to train has something positive in it," thought the Hyuuga prodigy and cracked a small smile before nodding, almost as if acknowledging his spandex loving teammate in his head.
"What's so funny?" hissed Sasuke as he saw his opponent smiling; his attention was obviously somewhere else, which made the future Sharingan bearer even angrier. Sasuke could tell that he was getting tired, already his breathing had hardened and sweat was forming on his brow. If he did not end this taijutsu match fast, his opponent would overwhelm him pretty soon. Realizing this, the Uchiha started working on putting more distance between himself and the older genin. Neji immediately felt the change in pace as he realized that Sasuke was slowly, but steadily moving back and while it was not obvious, with every blow they exchanged the raven haired boy was putting more and more distance between the two of them. The Hyuuga prodigy smirked covertly, he was right the 'genius' was getting tired. No matter, his opponent was still in the range of his divination, as long as he continued to remain there, Neji would have no problem unleashing his strongest clan taijutsu technique to dispatch him in the end.
Sasuke saw his opening as soon as he saw he was getting out of Neji's physical reach. With one last sweep of his arm, that Neji evaded by ducking, the Uchiha put a lot of force on his legs and jumped back, away from the Hyuuga by putting at least four to five feet of distance between them. But he was no done; he swiftly moved his hands, already gathering chakra in his throats before shooting a large fireball at Neji. The pearl-eyed boy's eyes widened, not at the fact that Sasuke had successfully performed the Grand Fireball technique, but at the sheer size of the attack. The fireball had to be at least the size of the small lake near the Uchiha compound diameter wise, and he was not incorrect. Sasuke had trained there for a whole week before displaying his achievement to his proud father, who had after that acknowledged him as his 'son indeed' for the first time, and he was no more than a recently turned four years old boy at the time. It was then that the youngest member of the house Uchiha had felt as if he was accepted fully, as if he truly belonged in the family of the Uchiha Clan's head, the proud, noble, and aristocratic Fugaku Uchiha. Instantly Neji activated his Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven technique (Kaiten). Releasing as much chakra as he could from every pore of his body, the Hyuuga met the massive fireball in a blast of heavily chakra induced explosion.
Kakashi was immediately on his feet, rushing towards the smoke that was now coming from the area where the explosion happened, which consisted practically the whole area of the training grounds that they were assigned to. Not only would Gai be extremely mad at him for losing one of his students, but he would probably find himself in an ANBU cell for the next several years of his life if he was responsible for not being able to stop a very promising genin from losing his life in a simple spar among his peers. He gave a dark glance at Sasuke, only to see that even the heavily panting boy was looking worriedly at the place where the explosion happened. The masked Jounin stopped short when the smoke cleared a bit and he could see the Hyuuga standing upright, his breathing a little jagged but other than that and a few bruises that covered his body, he looked unscathed. Giving a sigh of relief, the former ANBU captain returned to his previous spot, but now he was sure that his student will find residency in the hospital for many oncoming days.
The obviously angry, and quite pissed Neji took purposeful strikes towards his opponent, he was going to decimate the little "genius' for attempting to attack with one of the most revered attacks in all of Fire country, due to its sheer destructive power. Sasuke could tell he was in trouble, the pure fury burning in those opaque orbs in his opponents eyes were fearsome indeed, and he looked ready to murder the Uchiha right where he stood. Sasuke immediately took a defensive stance that he was taught while he was learning the Uchiha style of taijutsu, preparing himself to deal with whatever his opponent was about to throw at him, but nothing could have prepared him for what came next. Neji stood, less than an arm's length away from Sasuke, and almost growled out the famous Hyuuga one liner. "You are in my field of divination," and after that he attacked, with nothing short of ferocity of a lion and the force of a tiger, they young Hyuuga tore into the raven haired boy with a vengeance.
"Two palms, four palms, eight palms, sixteen palms, thirty-two palms, sixty-four palms!" Neji said through ground teeth as he continued his attacks incessantly on the younger boy, who was already on the ground completely paralyzed by the time the Hyuuga had finished his last strike. The long haired boy stopped as he stared coldly at his opponent, lying helplessly on the ground looking up. Though Neji expected to see fear on his eyes, to his surprise the only thing he saw of the younger boy's emotions was seething anger that was directed directly at him coming from the cold onyx colored eyes. He wanted to attack the helpless boy, he knew that Kakashi would not really stop him, but his own mentor Maito Gai had been able to instill a sense of honor within the Hyuuga. So he looked away from his opponent towards the calculating look of the silver haired ninja that was there to judge their skills. "He is down."
"I know," said Kakashi with a nod, and moved to check on Sasuke once Neji moved away from his body and sat down next to a tree to rest up. That high chakra infused Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven technique must have taken a lot out of Neji, even for someone who has high chakra reserves, almost that of a chuunin, it was a lot.
So you guys must be going like 'really, a chapter with nothing but spars?' Well, personally I think this little part was important because of character development. As you must have noticed, Sakura's and Ino's characters are already showing differences between Canon and the ones in my story, well this one was important for growth, ans also the need of change. Also it was important for Sasuke, because a clear realization of how weak one is also instills a sense of modesty and honor in some people (maybe that will happen to Sasuke too, probably not though, lol). And I know I should apologize because I said that I would have the start of Wave arc in this chapter but I did not realize it would be this long, but fitting in Naruto and Lee's spar alone would have made it a little too long for my tastes. As always ideas and opinions from readers are always welcome and if you would like to discuss the story in farther detail, just send me a quick P.M. I was actually surprised by the amounts of alerts and favorites I got, but people did not leave much reviews. Still, loved the reviews I got, so please keep them coming. Poll about Zabuza's sword still stands. And please, please, please don't forget to review.
Thanks,
Tanneal.