Rock Lee had been hunting for scrolls on the morning of the second day, when he came across a fight. He could have walked away, or even waited around to pick off the weakened victors at the end. He might have gotten two scrolls out of it.

But unfortunately, though he had never properly met the blond boy facing off against a trio from Sound, nor the unconscious teammates he was desperately defending, Lee's sense of honour required him to intercede.

Tenten would have killed him, and Neji would have scoffed and silently judged him, but even as he blocked the next blow headed for the boy and firmly committed himself to a fight in which they were still outnumbered, he knew in his heart that Gai would approve.

"Who the hell are you?" The blond boy was half-conscious himself, but he still squinted suspiciously at the newcomer. "You look kinda like that Green Beast, Maito Gai."

He thinks I look like Gai-sensei! Rock Lee was screaming internally at the compliment. He must have looked really cool, coming to Uzumaki Naruto's rescue.

"I'm Rock Lee, Gai-sensei's pupil." He kept his eye on the enemy as he spoke. "And you three are the students of my teacher's eternal rival: Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and," he paused for a moment, unable to avoid looking her way, "Haruno Sakura."

He had been eager to see her ever since Gai told him she would be competing in the exam. And he had been rehearsing and editing his first words to her far longer than that. While she was missing this often included fantasies of being the one to rescue her ("so won't you please date me?"). After she came back, they became promises that he would protect her with his life and never let anyone hurt her again ("so won't you please date me?"). When he found out from Gai that she had suddenly turned into a woman twice his age, with sad eyes and a scarred face that suggested deep trauma, he knew he'd have to change tactics. He'd introduce himself, tell her that he'd always admired her beauty from afar, and assure her that she had only grown more radiant with age and experience. He'd declare himself her stalwart defender, champion, and friend ("so won't you please be my eternal rival?").

She did look beautiful as an adult, but she also looked…strange. She was sitting up, unlike the Uchiha boy lying supine beside her; but it was clear that even though her eyes were open, she wasn't actually seeing anything. She didn't speak, move or even blink despite the fight currently taking place. There was an orange jacket laid across her shoulders, the sleeves knotted at the front. Probably it was meant to soften her bizarre appearance or offer her a little comfort, but all Lee could see was a doll someone had dressed up. How long had she been like this?

The Sound ninja were clearly in no mood for introductions.

"Shut up and give us Uchiha Sasuke," a brunette with long hair called out. "If you're quick, we might let the rest of you live."

"I already told you creeps," Naruto got into position next to Lee, "nobody's getting close to my team while I'm still alive."

It would have been a cooler line if he didn't look half-dead already, but fortunately Lee was well-rested and prepared to do anything to defend Team Seven in their vulnerable state. He wanted the chance to meet them properly, and that chance would only come if he could fend off the wolves long enough for them to recover.

Unfortunately the fight, which had started out promising thanks to his superior speed and strength, quickly took a turn for the worse when the Sound ninja revealed how much damage their jutsu could do using vibrations in the air alone. They didn't need to land a hit on him when they could burst his eardrums from a distance. In less than a minute, he found himself lying on the ground with the canopy spinning overhead.

Naruto was similarly disabled by the sound-nin's attacks and the fact that he had been fighting the longest of them all; but he wasn't content to simply lie there and watch. He dragged himself, dry-heaving from the inner ear trauma, over to his comrades. There was a sword with a red hilt and a pink strap, and he drew it from its scabbard and held it as high as he could.

The Sound nin laughed, but Naruto didn't waver. Lee had always heard that Uzumaki Naruto was the worst ninja, but watching him now, he realised that he was just like Lee: not a genius, to whom things came easy, but someone who had to work harder and fight smarter in order to keep up. Moved almost to tears by such a valiant display, Lee forced his own body to join him. Hopefully the rest of Team Gai would arrive before the Sound ninjas simply killed them both and stepped over their bodies to get to Sasuke and Sakura; but if not, Lee was prepared to die doing something honourable.

A dark energy flared into existence from somewhere behind him. He turned, thinking that the enemies had somehow circled around without him realising, but instead he saw that Sasuke had woken up, and looked…well, angry wasn't doing it justice. Black marks were spreading across him like a liquid bruise, and his chakra was so strong and so unstable that he was warped and flickering. Worst of all, his eyes were red as blood.

Everyone else turned to look, and for the first time since Lee had arrived, the Sound nin looked a little worried.

"Is that…?" the girl said, and the man with the wrappings nodded slowly.

Sasuke took in the four strangers (three obvious enemies, and one he hopefully recognised was trying to help) and the state of his own team. Sakura still looked like a doll, staring empty-eyed and unresponsive, and Naruto still lay on the ground with bleeding ears and a deathgrip on the sword.

"Who did this to you?" Sasuke asked Naruto, who tried to smile.

"Hey, Sasuke…it's not as bad as it looks, you know? And Sakura seemed to know she was gonna do…that," he gestured back at her with the sword, "last night."

"Who hurt you?" Sasuke repeated, voice deceptively soft. "Them?" He nodded at the Sound nin.

The enemy remained defiant.

"So what if we did?" The loud-mouthed man with fluffy hair sneered. "Anyway, it's your fault for making us wait. You're the only one we want to kill; but don't think we wouldn't hesitate to kill your friends too, if they'd kept getting in our way."

Sasuke reached down to take the sword off Naruto.

"Sasuke," there was an edge of warning in Naruto's voice. "Seriously, it's okay. You know me; I'm already feeling better." He began to struggle to his feet, but Sasuke placed a foot on his chest and wrenched the sword from his grip.

"Then help me kill them, if you like. But don't get in my way."

He moved so quickly that Lee almost didn't catch it. One moment Sasuke was standing over Naruto, and the next he was standing behind the Sound ninja with fluffy hair.

"What-" was all the man could say before the hilt of the sword cracked into the back of his skull. The girl shrieked and moved to help, but the leader threw an urgent hand out to stop her.

"You little punk." The man was still conscious, but it had to have hurt. He spread his hands, clearly preparing to parry the next blow with the air holes in his palms.

Lee had just opened his mouth to warn Sasuke when the sword came down on the man's left hand. The high-pitched whistle of the jutsu was unmistakeable; it should have stopped the sword mid-air, and possibly even forced it back on Sasuke. But Sasuke must have been stronger than the enemy as well as faster, because there was barely any resistance as the sword continued its arc.

Everyone watched in horror as four fingers fell to the ground.

"You!" That was all the man could manage in his current state. He pinned his left hand with its four bloody stumps between his right arm and torso, trying to stop the bleeding whilst keeping his remaining hand free.

Sasuke simply raised the sword again.

Now everyone was screaming, but Sasuke didn't even seem to hear.

"I am an avenger," he murmured, bringing the sword down.

Despite being unsuccessful last time, the man attempted to block with the air in his uninjured palm. Possibly it was the only truly powerful weapon in his arsenal, one that he had come to depend on for every situation no matter how suitable.

Like me, Lee thought grimly.

Once again it didn't work, and once again the sword broke through the barrier of air to strike its opponent. This time it bit deep into his shoulder, almost severing the entire arm. Lee winced, the urge to vomit from the vertigo suddenly compounded by the sight of the man's shoulder cleaving away from the rest of him. If it had been further along the arm, it might have been a clean amputation; differently awful, of course, but a man could live without an arm.

The victim tried to scream, but who knew what was happening to his lungs right now. What came out of his mouth was a wet hacking noise, almost like a sneeze, and then he dropped to one knee.

"Stop!" His female comrade shrieked, and it was unclear whether she cared about the man or just wanted the violence to end now that her team was on the receiving end.

"Sasuke!" Naruto roared, and the boy blinked rapidly. His red eyes faded to black and the bruising retracted back across his skin like it had never been there at all. He stared at the bloody sword in his hand, then at the man kneeling before him.

"I…" Sasuke seemed unsure what to do. Nobody was jumping to administer first aid, and even if they did, it would need to be some top-tier medical jutsu to save the man now. He turned back to Naruto, and for all that he had looked like a demon straight from hell only a few seconds ago, now he looked impossibly young. "I didn't-"

"Sasuke."

The voice was quiet, so quiet that Lee barely heard it over the sound of his own racing heart. But it was unmistakable: Haruno Sakura was no longer frozen. She stood, stretching her limbs as if she had only been sleeping. The orange jacket was still over her shoulders.

"Sakura!" Naruto's bruised face cracked into a relieved smile. "Are you alright?"

"Thanks to you," she smiled back at him, and then her entire focus was on Sasuke.

She stepped over to him and the man. Lee couldn't see her face as she silently took the red sword from his hands, but Sasuke couldn't seem to meet her eye.

"They attacked Naruto," he explained, his voice filled with a different emotion to the white-hot rage he seemed to be emanating earlier. "They said they wanted to kill me, and they'd kill him too if he got in the way." He bit his lip. "Can you heal him?"

Sakura hesitated briefly. "No."

"So I killed him."

Lee realised this would be Sasuke's first. It wasn't a good one to start with; for one thing, he clearly wasn't used to wielding a sword, and had made a mess of it. For another, that final blow had come from a place of malice rather than duty. Gai always said that fighting should be about protecting something important. Otherwise, win or lose, kill or die, the outcome would be tainted.

"No, no." Sakura shook her head vehemently, placing a comforting hand on his head. This gesture, more than anything, made it clear that Sakura was now older than all of them. The dynamic between her and Sasuke in that moment was closer to a mother comforting a child than a girl interacting with her crush. "You only wounded him. Look." She turned, and before anyone even realised what she was about to do, she was sliding her sword into the man's neck. There was a final gurgling cough, and then he went limp. "I killed him."

Lee could see her face now, and where Sasuke's had been a maelstrom of self-doubt, hers was utterly calm.

"Sakura!" Naruto struggled to his feet, but nothing he said or did could undo it now..

Sakura gave him a brief, apologetic smile before rounding on the two remaining Sound nin. "So; you're only here to kill Sasuke?" She raised the sword just enough to make her threat clear. "Is anyone in this exam actually a genin?" she added, quieter.

"Those were our original orders." The leader slowly raised his hands to his pocket and produced a scroll. "But I see now that this was merely a test within a test. Take this scroll and we'll leave in peace for now." He placed it on the ground and backed up carefully.

"For now?" Sakura frowned, but both Naruto and Sasuke spoke up.

"Let's just let them go."

"We can deal with them later."

The moment stretched a little longer, Sakura watching the enemies as her teammates watched her. Then she bent to wipe her sword on the dead man's clothes.

"Go, then."

They went, and it seemed like the entire forest released the breath it had been holding. Lee, who had until then been happy merely observing Team Seven while they decided the enemy's fate, suddenly found a pair of green eyes on him.

"Who's this?"

"That's Rock Lee," Naruto answered quickly, perhaps worried what Sakura would do if she thought he was another enemy. "He helped me. He's from Konoha."

"Hello." He couldn't remember a single word of the speech he had prepared. How could someone's eyes be so familiar and yet so alien?

"Helped, huh?" She sheathed her sword. "You are in pretty bad shape."

She knelt down and laid a hand on the back of his head. Before he could even consider the fact that Haruno Sakura was touching him (with the hands he had fantasised about holding, and the hands that had just killed a man), healing chakra stopped the world spinning, and then all he could feel was relief. He sat up, flexing his muscles to make sure everything still worked the way it should. "Thank you."

She smiled, and the full weight of their proximity was suddenly overwhelming. "You're welcome, Rock Lee from Konoha." She glanced down at his clothes. "I don't suppose your teacher is Maito Gai?"

"He is!" Lee nodded enthusiastically before wincing at the latent pain in his head. "How did you know?" Had Gai mentioned him this morning? What exactly had he told her?

She gently pinched the shoulder of his green jumpsuit. "You look like him."

He could have died of happiness right then and there. Not only had a gorgeous woman tended to the wounds he had sustained while protecting her, but just like Naruto earlier, she'd told him he looked cool!

"Heal Naruto next," Sasuke told her. "He could barely stand before."

"Wait a minute," Naruto frowned at his teammates. "You guys were unconscious only a few minutes ago! Don't act like you're both fine now just because you're awake."

"I am fine now." She assured him, and maybe it was just because she'd seemed so dead and frozen before, but she actually did look the best out of all of them. "I'm more concerned about you and Sasuke. And Lee-kun, of course." She winked at him, and he blushed scarlet.

"I'm fine." Both of her teammates spoke up at the same time, then glared at each other as if disgusted to be so in sync.

Sakura scoffed. "Naruto, you look dead on your feet. And Sasuke, Naruto said that weird grass girl bit you before you passed out?" She stood up and made a beckoning motion. "Let me see."

Sasuke backed away. "I said I'm fine," he repeated, tugging his collar higher up on his neck. "Right, Naruto?"

They never found out what Naruto would have said, because that was the same moment that Neji and Tenten finally found their teammate. Unfortunately, because they found him sitting injured in a clearing while surrounded by another team, they went in swinging.

Neji struck out at Sakura, the closest 'enemy' to Lee, while Tenten forced the boys apart with a barrage of kunai.

Lee tried to make his body move at its usual speed. He needed to block Neji's blow, even if it meant taking it himself. Despite appearances, Sakura had only just recovered from…whatever had made her freeze like that. One hit from Gentle Fist might be enough to send her back to that awful state, and this time it would be Lee's fault.

He needn't have worried. Sakura held her still-sheathed sword between two hands like a quarterstaff, and Neji's fist collided with the scabbard. She used the momentum to pivot the hilt outward, forcing Neji to back up or else break his jaw on the steel cap. As it was, the tuft of pink hair attached to the hilt just barely tickled the Byakugan user's chin.

"Stop!" Lee cried out before Neji could try again. Gentle Fist could hit dozens of times in a second, and Neji still didn't realise that Team Seven weren't hostiles.

"I take it this is the rest of your team?" Sakura asked Lee. She was barely looking at Neji, but Lee had no doubt she could still counter anything else he threw at her.

He nodded, then addressed his friends. "Neji and Tenten, the Team Seven rookies aren't our enemies. I chose to help them."

"Everyone's an enemy." Neji continued to glare at Sakura, but at least he was no longer on the attack.

Tenten dropped out of a nearby tree as lightly as a feather. "Oh relax, Neji. If Lee stuck his neck out for them, it'd be pretty awkward if we came along and kicked them while they're down. As easy as that would be, right now." She eyed the earth scroll still sitting on the ground where the Sound ninja had left it.

"Don't underestimate us," Naruto snapped, but Sasuke pulled out a scroll.

"We'll give you this heaven scroll if you leave us alone."

"Deal," Lee said quickly. Heaven was the one they needed, and he didn't have the stomach for any more fighting. Especially not against the team he had just given his all to protect. And especially not while Haruno Sakura still held that sword.