And another update! Rejoice!
Fighting OST's for the first two scenes (Main theme and Sarutobi work well), a mellow one for the last two.
Having someone try to forcefully merge themselves with you wasn't a terribly common occurrence, even in a world as diverse and colorful as the one in which shinobi dwell. Whatever technique the sound ninja was using, it wasn't anything he'd even heard of before.
That's why, when Sasuke felt just how wrong the technique his foe was initiating was, he didn't actually stop to think. Thinking, in this case, would've cost him the precious split seconds that represented the line between victory and defeat. He acted.
His hand clutched his own knee, the fact that a potentially lethal technique was in it being completely forgotten; the Chidori chakra short-circuited, physically connected to its' source. The feedback threw Sasuke back, scorching pain being the only thing he felt before the impact against the hard ground.
His hand was fine, the chidori was designed to protect the user's hand against everything but the wildest of shape transformations; his knee, however...
That should've been a second-degree burn right there, Sasuke realized. His knee should look like roast, but other than minor surface charring, he was fine. The same couldn't be said for the rest of him, however, as a sharp pain pierced him the moment he got up, forcing him to spit up a mildly worrying amount of blood.
However, no matter how badly hurt Sasuke actually was, it was nothing compared to the other guy.
Black streaks pointed the way across the now desolate ground, the volatile explosion of chakra flattening the ground from the point where the two stood, all the way to the now caved-in Senjuwood tree in which the still smoldering Sakon was lodged.
A stinging stench spread out on that side of the Rashomon, the utterly ruined body of Sakon prying itself from the timber. While his wounds looked more than grave, it didn't show in the way he moved, rage-filled eyes leveling themselves at the dark-haired boy.
"That was a very stupid idea, Uchiha."
Sasuke straightened up as much as he could, ignoring the sharp pulsating feeling in the right side of his chest. One hand swiftly pushed his messed-up hair aside while the other wiped the blood from his mouth, revealing the boy's unusually composed expression.
If he didn't look like he almost detonated himself with lightning chakra, Sasuke might've looked like he was having fun.
"I've had worse," he said, his most recent memory of his brother springing to mind.
All of a sudden, the ground shook, the great gate shaking for a brief moment before a fracture shot upwards from somewhere further down its' ugly face, tearing off a chunk of the construct and launching it into the forest beyond. Following the crash was a large cloud of dust and sand, most of which harmlessly sailed overhead, doing little more than momentarily darkening the sky.
Taking the moment, Sasuke took a breath, then eased himself into the standard academy stance he built his style on. His arms rose just a bit, holding a set distance from one another and forming a guard just loose enough to tempt the foe to try their luck with a linear attack.
His eyes flashed red once more, having been forcefully cut off from chakra by the self-inflicted surge, the two lonely tomoe spiraling his pupil for a second before settling into place.
Judging from the noise on the other side, Shikamaru and Choji might need help; he couldn't afford to mess around with this fool any longer than absolutely necessary.
"You should've given up back in the village..." Sakon spoke, rolling his shoulders and flexing his arms as he too slipped into a stance, this one far more aggressive than the one taught at the leaf's academy. He was getting winded, and that wasn't a good sign... he'd need to finish the Uchiha fast, or risk the mark taking a serious bite out of him.
Sasuke closed his eyes; His foe was helpless at long range, and far enough that he could afford himself that momentary reprieve. He kept telling him what to do, what he should've done... but that which was could not be undone.
While he could keep looking to the past, Sasuke would find nothing there, he realized. His eyes... the eyes coveted by someone as powerful as the snake sannin, now turned to the future, to the things he had yet to accomplish.
Things like breaking this idiot's arms.
He shot forward once more. Sakon swung low in an attempt to take out his footing, but the attack was far too obvious; Sasuke's fist connected with his foe's mask-like face, revealing the fact that despite his appearance, the sound-nin was as vulnerable as any regular person.
The one hit was an advantage, and Sasuke kept pressing it. One kick to the knee wasn't enough to bring his foe down, so he went with two, smirking when Sakon's legs buckled, forcing him to kneel into the dirt. A quick elbow to the neck dazed him for a bit longer, just enough for the Uchiha to circle around and force a violent frontline kick into the back of the sound ninja's head.
There was a hard thud, and Sasuke stepped forward, only for Sakon to swing around and connect with a punch of his own, forcing the Uchiha's nose to make a soft 'crunch' and send the boy reeling back.
The curse mark wasn't one of Orochimaru's masterpieces without a reason. With stage two, he could've even handled the green kid's kick, Sakon thought, grinning as he dashed forward, intent on choking out the annoying kid that kept him busy for so long.
His hands shot forward, only to miss their target completely, instead clasping clumsily on the boy's shoulders, a late sway from the Uchiha being enough to throw off his foe's aim. Fuming, Sakon shoved the boy away, cocking his arm back and swinging out, the searing pain of curse mark overuse hitting him like the freight train he'd once seen in the Land of Snow.
Sasuke snarled, eyes wide open and teeth bared, the combination of pain, anger and frustration twisting his features into a mask of hatred far more disturbing than the disfigured face of his enemy. His right arm swung out connecting far too quickly, pain shooting through his hand as the impact shattered both his hand and the bones of his opponent's face.
He wanted to pull on the curse mark, to add that extra bit of strength to his attacks, just to hurt the enemy a bit worse... but something held him back. Whether it was the pain, the anger, or simply the fact that giving into the power would mean he lost, that something held strong, even as Sasuke's violent direct drove the sound ninja to the floor yet again.
His right was busted, Sasuke realized, but his left was still good, so he made sure it made up for its' counterpart's absence. Blow upon blow collided with the right side of Sakon's face, the demonic visage fading fast as the boy's body grew unable to sustain the curse mark.
The first two felt hot, the next two made crunching noises, and the two after that drenched his fist with blood; he didn't remember anything about the last two. Screaming out in rage, Sasuke quickly got up, kicking the foe onto his stomach, then gripping his arm like a vice before pulling upwards with all his might.
Sakon's arm held up for three seconds, then it popped.
Sasuke Uchiha was victorious.
Two palms... four palms... eight palms... Neji was fighting a losing battle.
Literally exploding with each juken strike, the spiderlings slowly began forming a corpse pile around the Hyuga prodigy, their arthropod bodies twitching even as they died, leftover impulses causing legs to twitch and extend as the upper halves of their bodies flew around the forest, their suicidal run being little more than the instinct to follow their mother's command.
Neji's Byuakugan was flaring; he had dodged all of the oto-nin's attacks so far, but the pressure only kept rising, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep this pace up. The spiderlings would come to an end, he realized, but he'd need to double up on his strikes, and that was the one aspect of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms maneuver he did not yet completely master - doing it wrong would overload his muscles and he would be left vulnerable, a state which would all but seal his fate in this confrontation.
'Lee, where are you!?' He questioned inwardly, his face betraying no sign that he was even winded. With an impassive gaze, the branch house Hyuga kept destroying the creatures set to swarm him, moving dangerously close to the final, sixty-four hit combination.
"Doing well so far, Hyuga! How about we turn up the difficulty, eh?" with a sharp kick, Kidomaru ordered his summon to produce another egg, readying a swarm that should be able to overcome even this incredibly persistent Hyuga.
It wasn't too long until that egg burst, sending near-countless spiderlings skittering to join the horde that was already assaulting the white-eyed boy. The swarm grew and bulged, the tiny spiders clambering over one another in a chaotic dash towards the creature their mother had marked as the enemy. They didn't care that their siblings were dying by the dozens... all that mattered was that they please mother.
Neji grit his teeth. He was running on fumes, and it wasn't going to get any easier, if he could only-
"Leaf Rising Wind!"
The kick landed with explosive success; hitting the soft underside of the large spider summon, Rock Lee delivered enough force and pressure to instantly overload the entirety of the creature's organ system, the excess force driving it to detonate in a shower something slimy and smelly.
Landing at the edge of the swarm, Lee shot his teammate the nice guy pose for only a moment before smashing his fist into the closest spiderling. While some 'pet summons', as the creatures spawned by some larger summons were referred to at times, dissipated with the death or disappearance of their creator, this apparently wasn't the case with the spider kind...
"Took you long enough..." Neji sighed, smiling for the first time since his fight had begun.
"I am very sorry, Neji. Our foe's summon had made approaching very difficult for me," the green beast replied, destroying spiders and dodging blades with an almost casual ease.
Up above, Kidomaru frowned. He hated when the foe came with minions; the boss fight should be mano a mano, damn it. However, if they were going to double up on him, it was only fair that he doubled up on them. Unleashing the restraint on the curse mark, he felt the power flood him as the stage two transformation took place, sharpening his senses, heightening his reflexes and steadying his aim.
Before either of the Konoha genin knew what had happened, he was already loosing an arrow at the green one... only to see it deflected by a shiny blue barrier.
"You can thank me later," Neji huffed, glad that the swarm had finally been dealt with, "can you get him back on the ground?"
"I think so... No, in fact, I am positive I can!" Lee rallied himself, eyes fixing on the spot where he had last seen his opponent, finding it empty.
Before he could even turn around, the telltale sound of an airborne arrow zipped past his ears, the thump of impact ringing out somewhere far closer than could be considered safe. Another followed it, this time accompanied by a pained grunt from the Hyuga.
"Damn it!"
Turning around, Lee noticed that Neji's sleeve was now slowly turning red. However, the arrows gave off their foe's location... no matter how quick he was, Lee was just as quick, if not more.
"Hold on a little longer, Neji," he spoke, a smile slowly making its' way to his face, "it won't be long until this fight it over, I promise."
"Hmph..." came the grunt in reply.
Another noise followed, but Lee had already shot upwards, following the source. Appearing in the treetops far faster than any normal ninja could, Rock Lee locked eyes with his now malformed foe, epic brows furrowing.
He was hurt, he was supposed to be resting... but a youthful spirit like Lee's belonged only at two places - the training grounds and the battlefield; right now, the beautiful green beast of Konoha was completely in his element.
It didn't matter that the foe was a ranged fighter, nor did it matter that he had a sticky web attack that could incapacitate him if it were to hit directly... Right now, in the treetops of the forest of silent movement, Rock Lee was facing off against the enemy one on one, no holds barred...
And he was doing it to protect a friend, a teammate and a rival.
"Leaf Whirlwind!"
Shikamaru exhaled. Once again, the Ino-Shika-Cho delivered, even if it was a member short.
Through wit and guile, or perhaps just good old-fashioned luck, he had managed to sneak up on the enemy; the same enemy who couldn't be bothered to even go into stage one of the curse mark while fighting an enemy as 'weak' as Choji was.
However, the one thing people consistently forgot about the Akimichi was the fact that they were team players. The moment he caught a glimpse of his oldest friend, Choji redoubled his efforts, even going so far to take the spinach pill.
The boost had amused the sadistic Ukon for a while, but that amusement had evaporated the moment the shadow possession had connected. Distracted by the unfamiliar sensation of a Nara clan possession, the sound twin was far too late in unleashing the curse mark's stage one.
Choji Akimichi, the kid no one ever took seriously, stepped up, delivering a single super expansion punch that flattened the foe against the surface of his own summon.
The strike shook the ground below them and kicked up dust, shaking up the Rashomon enough to fracture the hideous face, tearing a chip of it off, sending it flying somewhere into the forest. In one move, Choji and Shikamaru had taken out their foe, moving in for the kill confirm before they even greeted one another.
"Choji, are you ok?" the Nara heir inquired, knowing full well that the colored pills were fairly dangerous to use, even with Choji's bulk.
Panting for a while longer, the chubby boy eventually nodded, giving his friend a smile, "We... we totally need to do that again sometime."
This one sentence got a smile from Shikamaru, the tension he's been under since the mission began fading away in seconds. They took a foe down already, as did Lee; the other three were outnumbered against their comrades... for his first mission with a genin team this large, the Nara thought he was doing well.
"You think they're doing ok?" Choji asked, ambling over and sitting down between his friend and the sound ninja's corpse.
"Why wouldn't they? I know how tough they all are, as do you. There's no reason for us to doubt our comrades."
"That doesn't stop me from worrying..."
"Yeah... me neither."
He wished it was daytime, that he could busy his mind with the clouds, but the stars were going to have to do on this night. Just a minute more, and he'd swing back to help Sasuke, even though something told him that the Uchiha could handle himself.
The sky was soothing, though. Inky purple vastness, spotted with countless yellow blips and the half-disc that was the moon. Unwittingly, Choji too joined the stargazing, finding that the sight took his attention away from his ailing body well enough.
It wouldn't be long until the darkness began fading, though. Their mission started off late, and it was the time of the year when the day was the longest, after all. Barely an hour from now, and the first rays of sun would pass over the mountain and shine on the village.
After a while, however, there was a rustle in the forest, and the bloody, burnt, but smirking visage of Sasuke Uchiha emerged from the forest.
"Report, genin," Shikamaru spoke in a somewhat more serious tone, noticing that Sasuke was holding his hand - hopefully it wasn't anything too serious.
"Dead..." the boy drawled, taking a few more steps before plumping down next to his two former classmates.
"Arms broken," he added, giving a restrained grin, one very different from the savage expression he bore not fifteen minutes earlier.
"So we're ok on the side objectives as well, hm?" Shikamaru replied, voice sounding content. While Sasuke was student of the year, the two members of Team Guy, as well as Naruto and Kiba, weren't too far behind the boy, which was good news.
"You should do this one, too," Choji added, motioning to the body lying below the punched-in hole in the Rashomon, the Rashomon that wasn't dispelling for some reason - perhaps it was a permanent construct?
"Later..." Sasuke replied in a drawl, turning his now black eyes to the sky.
It wasn't long until three more figures appeared in the moonlight, one considerably smaller than the other two.
"Shikamaru! Sasuke! You're all ok!" Naruto exclaimed, rushing towards his teammates.
"Damn it Naruto! Wait up!" Kiba yelled from behind him, speeding up in order to keep up with the blonde.
"Report," Shikamaru commanded, choosing to cover his duty as mission leader over voicing his concern as a friend.
"One encounter, one fatality," Kiba replied in a smug tone, pointing to both Naruto and himself with a thumb each, "we made a plan and executed it perfectly."
"Hey... what's wrong with your hand, Sasuke?" Naruto questioned, only now noticing that his teammate was holding his injured (not to mention bloody) hand.
"It's nothing," Sasuke replied, "don't worry about it."
"Kind of looks like you broke your hand," Kiba observed.
"Woof!" Akamaru seemed to agree.
"Leave him alone. He took down one of the sound guys all on his own," Choji cut in, knowing full well that Sasuke didn't appreciate being the centre of attention when he didn't force it on his own.
Naruto gave the Akimitchi a look, then shot one at Sasuke, before deciding that his best option was to simply shrug.
"So, we did it?"
"Not yet. Once Neji, Lee and Sakura report in, however, we will be."
"Maybe we should go look for them?" Choji offered.
"Give me a minute!" Kiba protested, "We've been running ever since one of you guys kicked up that dust cloud!"
"Woof."
"Akamaru has a point," Shikamaru agreed, only to be given odd looks by the others, Sasuke included.
"Did you just make a joke?" Naruto asked, mildly flabbergasted.
"I think he did..." Kiba replied, eyebrows still raised.
"Man, you guys... this is just too troublesome..." Shikamaru sighed, defeated.
"Oy! Why the hell did we start shift this early?" Izumo questioned, rubbing his eyes.
"So we can finish it by lunchtime." his friend and fellow gate guard replied, running a hand through his messy hair.
The truth was that Kotetsu had woken up earlier than usual, deciding to share the misery with the only man deserving of it, his friend and coworker, Izumo Kamizuki. While the sun was barely rising, the two were already trudging along the path, intending to make the nighttime guards just a bit less miserable by ending their shift early.
"So... now that Tsunade is the Hokage and all, you think we could maybe convince her to shell out some more benefits?"
"As if you don't spend enough of your time doing syrup and shots in the lounge already."
"Don't be like that, man. I've got a soft spot for the sweets, that's all."
"Riight..."
Soon enough, the two arrived to the gate, wordlessly exchanging stations with the two grumpy men who seemed all too eager to finally leave their posts for the day.
Settling into their usual positions, the two were ready to toss a coin to see who actually keeps watch first, only to be interrupted by something Izumo noticed in the distance.
"Is that... pink?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Hand me those binoculars, I can't see what that thing over there is..."
Of course, Kotetsu just used the binoculars himself.
"Damn it."
"Damn what?"
"Come on, let's move. It's a genin, and she's hauling a prisoner."
"That... doesn't really happen that often."
"No shit, man. Just go already."
"Huh? Why do I have to go?"
"If we both leave this gate, we get executed for treason."
"Oh, right... damn I hate this village."
"Bullshit, you love it."
"True..." he drawled, gazing longingly at the Hokage faces in the mountain.
"Dude, the genin."
"Right, right."
HE-SpecOps - If by 'power as you need it' you mean the manga's tendency to power up Sasuke off-screen, then you have no reason to fear. Almost every character that pops up in this story will lose a fight, and that includes hax-using Uchihas. Otherwise, I won't be adding to or removing from what Kishi made the Sharingan to be.
When someone brings an OC into a story, what is it that decides whether you like the OC or not?
For me, it's usually about the way they speak (if it's third person), or their reasoning (if first person). It bugs me to no end when someone writes a fic with Naruto and some random OC girl who has no connection to any other character in the story, and still ends up being more than able to curbstomp whoever gets in their way.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter!
I would also really appreciate if you left a review telling me why this story caught your eye. I'm trying to figure out what exactly makes a good Naruto fic, and the answers still elude me.