Here's the next chapter. We have a showdown between Kakashi and Sakura. I hope you enjoy it.


While she stood there, kinda dazed at the sudden reveal, Kakashi started explaining the rules of the fight. "Your test is simple. You need to get one solid hit on me. Even a cut can count as one, so it doesn't need to be a major hit. In my case, I need to get 3 hits on you. If you succeed, you win. Godaime-sama has graciously agreed to referee us for this session. I won't be hiding anywhere for a long time, as that would be against the purpose of this test, but otherwise anything goes. Now, I think that's all we need in terms of rules. And as always, if you want to win, come at me with the intent to kill."

With that, Kakashi lifted his headband, revealing his Sharingan. She certainly couldn't hold back now. It was time to demonstrate why she'd chosen aerial combat. She used her signature jutsu, and 4 hands of stone rose up out of the ground. This was her current limit, which drained her quite a bit. But it was necessary. The next few moves hadn't been seen by her sensei yet, so now was the biggest chance she had. She jumped up, and two of the hands moved below her feet, and held her up in the air. This was the idea she'd based the next phase of her fighting style on. With the other two stone hands by her side, she flew through the air at a high speed, while focusing chakra to her feet to stay stuck. Kakashi calmly took out a pair of kunai, and blocked her first attack, which was a barrage of shuriken from high above, enhanced by the shuriken shadow clone jutsu. He dodged most of them, blocked the rest with a pair of kunai, and then threw the two kunai in his hands, while preparing to jump up to meet her in the air. She quickly sent the two stone fists at her side to engage him, while she flew in for another attack.

She tensed her body as though she was about to jump, but that motion itself was a decoy. Kakashi threw a lightning charged kunai at her, but almost in an instant, her body flipped 180 degrees vertically, pulled upside down by the stone hands at her feet which flipped her upside down in an instant. The movement both allowed her to dodge while also catching Kakashi off guard. He managed to dodge her sword swing by stepping back a few metres away, but it caught him off guard enough for the other two stone hands to go for his legs. He kicked one away, but the other managed to grab his leg to pin him to the ground. She quickly released the chakra at her feet, and twisted to land safely on the ground. She quickly charged in, making sure to avoid the sight of the sharingan. She technically could break free, but it was dangerous to look at it at such a close distance where he could easily attack. But as she moved in, he pulled a string with his left hand, and the lightning charged kunai he'd thrown before came at her from behind. Her eyes widened as she dodged in a hurry, though she threw a stone hand curled into a fist at Kakashi just before she did so, in the hopes that it might hit while he was on the ground. After successfully dodging the kunai, she saw that he'd created a small earth wall to block her attack.

A hand popped out of the ground to grab her leg, but she was able to react in time and jump up, while getting back on the two stone hands she'd been riding on before. Kakashi, who'd emerged from the ground, jumped up before she could fly up, and aimed to attack her. She swung her sword at him to push him back, but to her surprise, he let it hit. The clone dissipated in a burst of lightning. Ugh. She tried to apply some medical chakra to heal herself, but the attack had shaken her up.

Kakashi jumped over the earth wall he'd created to hide his actual location, just as Tsunade called out "First hit goes to Kakashi." The crowd roared, and she could here bets being made even from down in the arena.

"Not bad Sakura. You got quite close. But you probably should've stayed up on those hands instead of coming down. You got too greedy. But it was a good try."

On any other day, that sort of assessment would have made her happy. But today, it wasn't enough. It was time for the next attack. She backed up quickly, and then called the first two stone hands she'd made back to her. Then she had the two hands at her feet lift her way up in the air. Then, she spent some time healing up and making preparations. Sensei really was amazing. Even though he'd never seen many of the moves she'd shown, he countered them perfectly. He saw several moves ahead of her. But she still had a few tricks up her sleeve. Once she felt her body had recovered, she ate a chakra pill, and flew back down. Kakashi was calmly sitting on the ground, reading his book. Without looking up, he said "Had a nice nap up there Sakura ? I wondered if I'd have to wait all day."

She ignored the taunts and looked around carefully for any traps. Given that this was meant to be a sparring match, Kakashi probably wasn't hiding, meaning that was his real body, but he was way too relaxed for there to not be any traps. She started by throwing a few weapons to test Kakashi. They were deflected without him even moving, by a couple of weapons thrown from somewhere up in the crowd. That's smart. He couldn't hide, but his clones certainly could. But there wouldn't be many clones, it was likely there was just one given his reserves. And anyways, this was probably just a plot to divide her attention. The best method here was to take a few risks, and find a way to trap Kakashi in a fight without his clones.

She flew down to him, and threw kunai with explosion tags at him from above. Kakashi ran up the wall towards the crowd, seemingly drawing her towards the hidden clone. She took the bait. She flew in at the highest speed she could muster, while launching a stone fist at his face to stop him for a moment. She used the other hand to make signs with her left hand, and then launched a couple of water needles from her mouth towards Kakashi as she closed in. Then, a clone burst out of the crowd and blocked the attack. After it dissipated into smoke, Kakashi burst through it and jumped straight at her, closing fast enough to land a cut on her cheek. She heard Tsunade speak again, but she ignored it. She used the last trick up her sleeve. She launched the other fist to intercept Kakashi, and then she jumped towards him.


He could barely believe what he saw. He could see exactly how the chakra at her feet was moving. When she'd jumped to get close, he threw a kunai at her while she was in midair. Instead of blocking like he expected, she'd jumped again. Except this time, she'd jumped off of nothing. Air walking. It was a theoretically possible chakra exercise along the lines of tree and water walking. It was closest to water walking, except the user needed the control to stick air together into a solid base, and constantly adjust it. It was water walking ramped to to a eleven. Only a handful of Shinobi could maintain it for a second, and Sakura had just joined that elite list. It caught him off guard enough that she managed to get right above him, and launch multiple stone fists at him. He made a chidori to cut them down, but Sakura pointed her palms at him and let her seals releasing a massive blast of wind at him. He countered with a wind jutsu of his own, slowing it down enough to prevent any real damage, but he still fell to the ground. He managed to land on his feet, but Sakura flew down and threw in multiple smoke bombs. Almost immediately after, a stone fist was launched at his face. But she was still in the air from what he could tell.

Then suddenly, she dropped down right in front of him, and an earth dome surrounded them. Shit, there was no light, he couldn't see. She must've had her eyes closed up there to adjust to the dark. There was only one way to win. To rely on his other senses and go for a counterattack. Luckily, he knew how she attacked. He pulled out a kunai and moved to attack. He dodged the first blow by an inch and counterattacked with a kunai. He felt it cut skin, but at almost the same time, he was cut himself.

The earth dome them as Sakura collapsed in exhaustion. Tsunade came down to examine them, and saw that both of them were cut. She then turned to crowd and announced "This fight is a draw, with 3 hits by Kakashi to 1 hit by Sakura." She then quickly moved to help Sakura up, and healed her up. "Dammit, Kakashi. You could have held back a little more. You know she was going to be made jonin regardless, given her skills."

He rubbed his head sheepishly as he said "Well, I got a little caught up in her pace, and one thing led to another. But this'll be good for her reputation. Some believe she's not worth the attention she gets."

Tsunade rubbed her head, but handed Sakura over to him. As he carried over to the infirmary, he heard Tsunade announce "As a result of her performance, Sakura Haruno is hereby promoted to a full jonin, with all the rights that come with the rank. Are there any objections?" The crowd murmured, but nobody said anything. Well, it was the same with Lee before. He smiled down at Sakura. She'd done well. The day when she'd surpass him would come soon.


A/N

I hope you enjoyed that. This is the end of this arc, and the Interlude chapters. I'll be getting back to the main story. This takes two months before the next chapter, i.e. before the end of the timeskip. We'll kick things off with Naruto's return.