Genin
By Flashfyre5
NOTE: “ “
= Talking
Chapter
Two: A Little Bit of Yesterday
“You’re
kidding me, right?” Sasuke said, annoyedly. “You asked Dobe-kun to join us for the
jounin test? He’s not even a
chuunin!”
“Hey!
Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here!” Naruto shouted, slipping back into
familiar patterns with Sasuke, despite the fact that the two of them had
deliberately avoided each other for the last two years.
More
than a little of Naruto’s annoyance with Sasuke at this particular moment was
linked to more than the Uchiha youth’s sneering comments. Naruto could see the way Sakura was
looking at him, and found himself again jealous of the raven-haired boy’s
looks. Sasuke had cut his hair
shorter, and while it was still long enough to be wild and swept up and away
from his face, he no longer had the bangs that had characterized him for so
long. The boy’s eyes had only grown
darker as time had progressed. Now,
they were such an inky dark shade of chocolate brown that they were virtually
indistinguishable from the black of his pupils. He wore a blue scarf, which covered his
face up to just above his mouth.
The tail ends of the scarf trailed off down his back, hanging just above
his rear. Sasuke also wore a light
gray zippered jacket. It had black
piping along all of its’ seams, which fed very well into his pants, baggy black
affairs that appeared to be made out of denim, but Naruto wasn’t
sure.
“Then
challenge me,” Sasuke taunted, his grin looking more like a sneer. “I’ll put you in the hospital
again.”
“Bring
it on!” Naruto shot back, his eyes glinting. “And I’ll show everybody that your
victory was just a fluke!”
“Guys,
quit it,” Sakura commanded, stepping between the two. “Sasuke, we need a third person to be
eligible for the jounin test.
Naruto’s it. That’s just the
long and the short of it.” Sasuke
turned away with a harrumph, but didn’t audibly protest any further. “Naruto, just try not to get into any
fights with Sasuke. At the most,
this should only be for a couple of weeks.
After that, you won’t have to see each other
again.”
“All
right, Sakura-san. I guess he’s
just not worth it,” Naruto sighed, turning away from Sasuke as
well.
“You
looking to get hurt? I’ll drop you
like a sack of bricks.” Sasuke growled, turning back. His eyes were cold with anger at
Naruto’s comment.
“No
way!” Naruto cried, sliding into a fighting stance after facing Sasuke
again. “You only won last time
because you cheated. The San Bubun
Azarashi no Jutsu is only good against me, and learning a technique that only
works against one person aint fair!”
“Fair is
surviving. Fair is winning. Your corpse isn’t going to care weather
or not its’ life was ended fairly or not.” Sasuke shot back, his hand sliding
behind his back for a kunai.
“For the
love of God, you two are ridiculous!” Sakura shouted, stepping between them
again. “Sasuke, go off and
train. We’ll meet at ten tomorrow
to register for the exam. And show
some of that legendary self-control next time you meet up with Naruto so that it
looks like we could actually function as a team!” Sakura commanded, shoving
Naruto bodily away from Sasuke. The
dark-haired boy sighed and walked away, not saying anything
further.
“That’s
right,” Naruto started, sending a snipe out at Sasuke, but Sakura whacked him on
the side of the head.
“You’re
not any better than he is, you know,” Sakura admonished, and Naruto finally
relaxed. Sakura let up on her
shoving. Fortunately, Sasuke either
hadn’t heard or he hadn’t cared.
“You’ve really got to learn how to pretend to like him, at least, or
we’ll never get accepted tomorrow.”
“I know,
Sakura-san,” Naruto sighed, looking down.
“He’s just so… you know,” he continued, motioning for Sakura to walk next
to him as he walked away from their meeting point with Sasuke. /Why is it always Sasuke that gets
everything that I want without even trying?/ Naruto wondered, feeling defeated,
though his opponent hadn’t thrown a single punch.
“It’s
okay, Naruto. He’s not the same
person that he was before the first chuunin exam. He’s just so much… darker, more filled
with rage now. Sometimes I just
don’t know what to do with him,” Sakura agreed. Naruto found himself looking at her with
a measure of surprise; he’d never heard words come out of Sakura’s mouth
concerning Sasuke that were anything short of glowing. “I mean, normally, he’s the same Sasuke
that I’ve known forever. Sometimes,
though, he turns into this… other person.
It’s like there’s two of him, or something,” Sakura explained, and
Naruto’s hopes crashed as soon as they’d been formed.
“Kinda
like you, huh?” Naruto joked, covering for his own
disappointment.
“Hey,
now,” Sakura replied, punching him lightly in the arm. “I’m different. The other me is actually normal. Kind of. Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I just remembered. She’s been bugging me to talk to
you. Give me a second here,” Sakura
said, stopping to summon up her chakra while closing her eyes. She then performed three quick hand
seals, and called out, “Jinkaku Kokan no Jutsu!”
Sakura’s
eyes eased open, and they were different, as Naruto had come to expect. The most obvious thing was that they had
changed from their previously pale green to an almost shockingly bright
blue. Also, they weren’t as… soft
as they had been before. They had a
hardness, and a mischievousness that hadn’t been there
before.
“Hiya,
Naruto-kun,” Sakura said, her voice deeper and silkier than it was
normally. It had taken Naruto a
while to get used to this after they’d developed the Jinkaku Kokan, but he now
knew to take it in stride.
“What’s
up, Sakura-chan? I haven’t seen you
in a while,” Naruto said easily as the two made their way into the business
section.
“Not too
much. I’ve been wanting to thank
you for all the help you’ve been with my training. I really owe you one for spending all
that time with me when you didn’t even know the weapon that well,” Sakura said,
smiling. “So I’ve decided to treat
you to lunch,” she continued, pointing at the Ichiraku Ramen bar. Naruto looked at it, then looked back at
her.
“Have
you cleared this with the other Sakura?
I mean, it’s her money, technically,” Naruto asked. Despite the caution of his words, he
could not hide his excitement at the prospect of getting a free lunch at
Ichiraku… a treat that he couldn’t enjoy very often.
“Yeah,
it’s cool,” Sakura replied, leading Naruto into the noodle bar. Naruto paused for a moment to shake his
head at how easily he and Inner Sakura got along, once they had actually
met. That had been the purpose of
developing the Jinkaku Kokan- Ino had told him about Sakura’s ‘second person,’
and he’d been intrigued. When he
asked Sakura about it, she had admitted that sometimes she felt like there was
another person inside of her, thinking and doing things that she wouldn’t even
think of. It had turned out that
Inner Sakura, or Sakura-chan as Naruto called her, was very similar to him in
terms of personality. She was
determined, mischievous, and rather reckless. She was fun, however and, surprisingly,
much better than normal Sakura at taijutsu. On the other hand, Sakura-chan was just
hopeless at ninjutsu and genjutsu.
“What’re
you waiting for, Naruto-kun?” Sakura called. Naruto shook himself out of his reverie
and joined her in the noodle bar.
The chef
took one look at him and said, “I know you’re a good customer, Naruto, but no
more until you pay off your tab!”
“Sorry,”
Naruto said, scratching the back of his head. “Payday isn’t until tomorrow, but
Sakura-chan here said that she’d pay for me today.” The chef looked at the pink-haired girl,
who nodded to him and patted the seat next to her for Naruto to sit
on.
“What’ll
it be?” the chef asked, pulling out a pair of large bowls.
“Miso
ramen, please,” Naruto said happily.
The chef looked at him with a cocked eyebrow, looking like he was
expecting a larger order from the youth, but he kept
quiet.
“And
you?” he asked Sakura, moving to pull some freshly cut noodles out of the
refrigerator and put them in boiling water.
“Beef
and pork ramen, please,” Sakura ordered, smiling. The chef nodded and put more noodles in
the boiling water, while he prepared the broth and fixings for the two
orders.
“Sakura-san’s
gonna kill you for that,” Naruto cautioned, knowing how closely Sakura-san
watched her diet. /Girls,/ he
thought with a grin.
“No, she
won’t. She’ll kill me for something
else,” Sakura said cryptically.
Naruto was about to ask her for more details, but then decided that it
was probably in the best interests of his health not to
ask.
“Okay,”
he agreed, shaking his head. “So,
what does the jounin test consist of?” he asked, changing the
topic.
“Well, I
know that it’s three parts, just like the chuunin test. And I know that they’ll be designed to
evaluate us in areas that would be important if we were to become jounin. Aside from that, I couldn’t tell
ya. They change the things every
year, so…” Sakura trailed off, shrugging.
“Whatever they are, they’ll use jounin, and not just Leaf jounin
either. They hire out jounin from
other villages that would be specifically difficult for certain candidates to
defeat. It’s a pretty brutal
test.”
“Wow,”
Naruto said, impressed, then smiled.
“Sounds like fun,” he grinned excitedly.
“Hell
yeah!” Sakura agreed, pumping a fist into the air.
“Ramen’s
up,” the chef said, sliding a bowl across the counter to Naruto, then another to
Sakura.
“Itadakimasu!”
Naruto said cheerfully as he pulled apart his chopsticks. Sakura followed suit a moment later, and
just as Naruto was about to start gorging, he noticed something that surprised
and pleased him. “Hey,” he said to
the chef, “you gave me an extra naruto.
Thanks!”
“Don’t
mention it,” the chef replied, waving at Naruto over his shoulder. Sakura chuckled at the exchange as she
ate her ramen eagerly, savoring the rarely stolen treat of an illicitly fatty
meal at outer Sakura’s expense.
Naruto charged into his ramen, devouring the noodles fairly quickly. He then fished out one naruto and tossed
it into his mouth, chewing the treat slowly before swallowing, then grabbed the
other with his chopsticks and did the same.
“Eating
the naruto is the best part,” he said happily after he swallowed the second
naruto. Sakura was finishing off
her own noodles as well, and watched as Naruto drank his broth. Suddenly, she got a truly evil, horribly
terrible thought. She wondered for
a second as to weather or not she should do it, then grinned. /Of course,/ she thought deviously as
she fished out her own naruto with her chopsticks.
“You
know, Naruto-kun, she said, turning to face him. She paused for long enough for Naruto to
put down his bowl and turn to look at her.
Slowly, she raised the squashed fish patty to her mouth and breathed,
“eating the naruto is my favorite part too.” As she said this, she took a slow,
sensuous bit out of the little red-and-white fish patty. Naruto twitched for a minute, then fell
over backwards off of his stool, blood leaking in a little rivulet down from his
nose. Sakura couldn’t take it any
more and burst out laughing. When
Naruto picked himself up off of the floor and glared at her for the bad joke,
she only laughed harder. (If you
didn’t get this, see Side Note 1)
“That
was horrible,” Naruto muttered as he slid back onto his stool. Sakura had finally calmed down somewhat,
her laughter subsiding.
She
looked at Naruto for a moment, grinned, and said, “I know.” Naruto sighed exasperatedly and shook
his head, while Sakura picked up her own bowl and drank the
broth.
“So, is
that what outer Sakura’s going to kill you for?” Naruto asked once she’d
finished.
“Nope,”
Sakura replied, setting the bowl on the bar in front of her. She then rose and fished a bill out of
her pocket, then handed it to the chef.
He quickly made change for her and handed it back.
“You’re
kidding me, right?” Naruto asked, rising from his stool and nodding his thanks
to the chef.
“Well,
she’s gonna be pissed about it,” Sakura agreed, pocketing her leftover
money. “But this is gonna make her
a lot more uncomfortable.” That
said, she leaned in towards Naruto until her face was only a hair’s breadth from
his own. Naruto froze, staring at
the slightly taller girl. “I don’t
know why outer Sakura likes Sasuke any more,” she whispered into Naruto’s
ear. “But I’ve definitely gotten to
like you,” she finished, punctuating the sentence with a light, almost fleeting
kiss on the cheek. Then she pulled
away and said, smiling widely, “See you tomorrow at ten at the
headquarters! Don’t
forget!”
Naruto
stood, frozen in place, as Sakura ran off into the marketplace. He heard the chef chuckle behind him,
but it didn’t really register. His
mind was racing, thinking about what Sakura had said to him. /Shit,/ he thought suddenly, remembering
just who had said that to him. /I
don’t even know if she was being serious or pulling another prank on me./ Naruto sighed deeply, then pushed aside
the cloth that hung over the entrance of the Ichiraku ramen bar and stepped
outside. /This is gonna keep me up
all night tonight. How
troublesome,/ he thought, turning to walk home. Then he stopped for a moment and
chuckled to himself, and thought, /I sound just like Shikamaru. Damn. Oh, well./
As he
walked home, buried in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice for once how almost
every other person in the village moved to get well away from him as he
walked.
* * * * * *
Sasuke stood alone in his own one-room apartment late that night. He was tired and sweaty from a full day
of training- it had taken him that long to get over his annoyance at
Naruto. He unwound the scarf around
his neck, and draped it over a hook on the wall. He then unzipped his high-necked jacket,
and hung it on the same hook that his scarf hung on. Clad only in his pants and a sleeveless
undershirt, he looked at himself in the mirror for a moment, then looked
away. Where there had once been a
single seal around the damned curse seal that Orochimaru had given him, there
were now five rings, each bigger than the last. The largest of these rings extended all
the way around his shoulder blade and left pectoral. It wrapped around underneath his arm,
and formed a band on his bicep.
More notably, it extended up his neck, the highest spire of the seal
edging its’ way onto his cheek. In
the middle of it all, the three comma-like dots of the curse seal spun, as
always, glowing a bright red-orange
Kakashi
had noticed that his first seal hadn’t been enough a little over three years
ago, and had added a second seal to the first. When that too had failed to keep the
curse seal completely contained, Kakashi had approached Tsunade, who had placed
the next two rings of sealing on him.
Even that hadn’t been enough to completely hold the damned thing, so
Tsunade had called in a favor from Jiraiya a little over two years ago. Sasuke had been present when she’d asked
him, and even now he wished that he hadn’t. An argument had exploded between them,
which had lasted for a full three hours before it had come to a
climax.
Jiraiya
was incensed that Naruto had been passed over for promotion so many times, and
Tsunade was pleading helplessness, even while she accused Jiraiya of being
completely biased. Sasuke was of
the opinion that, though he was good, Naruto just didn’t match up to himself or
the other chuunin, especially since he got to cheat and use the demon fox’s
power for himself.
He had
learned of Naruto’s seal one day while they were training with Kakashi. Water walking for chakra control or some
such. Anyway, Naruto had stripped
down to a pair of swimming trunks, and Sasuke had seen the four-point seal on
Naruto’s stomach… so much like his own seal. It hadn’t taken much work to pry out of
some unsuspecting villager the real story behind the demon fox’s attack. After that, he’d only had to ask Kakashi
for instruction in the art of temporary combat seals. He’d managed to develop his own variety,
a three-part seal that would completely scramble the chakra flow of anybody it
was placed upon… so long as that person had chakra of a type not his or her
own. Considering that he’d created
the skill on his own in little more than a month, Sasuke had been rather proud
of himself. When he’d actually
successfully used the technique on Naruto, he’d been elated, but he hadn’t
anticipated that it would burn out all of his own chakra to use. Even as such, he was better than Naruto
in straight taijutsu, and had been able to beat the blond-haired boy without too
much difficulty.
When
Jiraiya had stormed out of the room, he’d shaken himself from his reverie. Tsunade sank back into her chair,
looking tired and old. She held her
head in her hands for a while, and Sasuke chose not to disturb her silence. Eventually, she raised her head to look
at him.
“Jiraiya
will put the fifth seal on you, but he’s leaving the village afterwards. As long as Orochimaru doesn’t do
anything more to you, the curse seal will be contained permanently, and it won’t
be passed on to any children that you might have,” she addressed him wearily,
her head still supported by her hands.
“Hell, by the time you’re fifty or so, the damn thing might actually be
gone,” she said with a harrumph.
“The seal will work by keeping the seal activated constantly, but it will
shunt the energy out of your body.
It will also reinforce the other four seals to keep the curse seal
contained,” Tsunade explained, then rose to address him properly. “Go home. Jiraiya said that he’d be ready for you
in a week.”
Sasuke
shook his head, bringing himself back to the here and now. True to his word, Jiraiya’s seal had
worked perfectly. After two full
years of functioning, the diameter of the curse seal’s spin had shrunk in size
by a full millimeter from all the energy it had been forced to expend. Sasuke had taken to wearing high-necked
clothing and scarves immediately after the sealing ceremony, to continue to hide
the abysmal mark that dominated his body.
Somewhere,
deep inside himself, he hated both the curse seal and the five seals that sealed
it. Were it unsealed, he knew that
the curse seal could offer him great power. He didn’t know what price this power
would come at, but he had tasted it before… and he’d liked it. For that, he hated the protective
seals.
But he
also hated the curse seal itself.
The one effect that nobody had been able to contain was the long-term
retardation of his chakra generating skills that the curse seal had forced on
him. Never had this been more
apparent to him than when Itachi had returned, for a single day. Sasuke had seen him, and immediately
tried to kill him. Itachi had
brushed both him and his attacks aside with ease, then had ripped off his shirt
to reveal the curse seal and the seals surrounding it. Even the cold, hard face of the elder
Uchiha fell when he saw Orochimaru’s curse seal.
“You
allowed yourself to be tainted by Orochimaru’s filth?” Itachi had asked coldly,
holding Sasuke’s left shoulder in a vicelike grip. Sasuke could only gasp and nod, his
hands trying to pull Itachi’s hand off of his shoulder. Itachi pulled his younger brother close
to his face. Sasuke could feel his
older brother’s hot breath on his cheek as he turned his face away. “You have just caused me a great deal of
trouble,” Itachi finally said, after a long pause. “Do not waste the time it will take me
to fix this.” He then dropped
Sasuke on the ground and walked away.
Sasuke could only writhe on the ground, clutching his
shoulder.
With an
almost physical effort of will, Sasuke pushed the unpleasant memory from his
mind, and stripped down the rest of the way, before changing into a fresh
sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of new boxers. Doing his best not to think about the
past at all, he pulled out his futon and laid down to go to sleep on it. He looked out the window at the moon,
hanging full and heavy just above the horizon.
/Moody
night tonight,/ Sasuke thought as he drifted off to sleep.
* * * * * *
/Moody night tonight,/ Naruto thought as he stared up at the stars from
his apartment building’s roof. Just
as he’d thought, he’d been kept up that night, but it hadn’t been Sakura-chan’s
pranks that had done it, as he had suspected earlier. Seeing Sasuke had brought back a lot of
old, smoldering feelings that he thought he’d left buried in the past. Mostly, he found himself thinking about
the finals of his second chuunin tournament; the only time he and Sasuke had
ever fought for real.
***
Three Years, Six Months Ago ***
Naruto stood in the arena, grinning excitedly. His body was practically humming with
anticipation. Sasuke, standing six
feet away from him, was smiling broadly as well.
The exam proctor, some chuunin whose name Naruto had long forgotten,
dropped his right arm, shouting, “Begin!”
Naruto dashed to the side.
He had sparred with Sasuke often enough to know that the raven-haired boy
was his superior in taijutsu, but not by much. /Besides,/ he thought as he gathered
chakra into his right hand. The air
there began to stir, moving about faster and faster. /I’ve finally mastered the
Rasengan!/
Sasuke was moving opposite to him, and Naruto could see that his
sharingan eyes were swirling around his pupils. Sasuke was not copying him, however,
instead performing a series of hand seals as he ran, keeping his distance from
Naruto for now.
/Shit!/ Naruto thought as he realized that he hadn’t seen Sasuke use this
combination of seals before. /He’s
got something new too!/ Considering
that Sasuke had been making seals for almost ten seconds now, it would be
something powerful, too. It was
just then that he felt the almost subconscious tug from his right hand that told
him that the Rasengan was ready.
Naruto turned and charged straight towards Sasuke.
“Rasengan!” he shouted as he closed the distance between himself and his
opponent. Sasuke made a final seal,
the index, middle, and ring fingers of his right hand held by his entire left
hand. The three fingertips began to
glow with an eldritch blue light, and the characters for ‘heaven,’ ‘earth,’ and
‘hell’ could be faintly made out among the flickering light of his
fingertips.
“San Bubun Azarashi no Jutsu!” Sasuke shouted, and his entire right hand
exploded into blue flame. The three
characters seemed to enlarge, and Sasuke began to retreat, slowing the relative
speed of Naruto’s advance.
/Three part seal?/ Naruto thought to himself worriedly, then shook his
head. /I’m already committed. One hit with the Rasengan and it’s over
for Sasuke./ Naruto leapt forward,
his right hand outstretched, the Rasengan whirling furiously in his hand. Sasuke grinned, having predicted
Naruto’s reckless, all-or-nothing attack.
He dove to the left, holding his right hand out and away from both the
ground and his body. Naruto, over
committed, fell to the ground where Sasuke had just been, his hand leading the
way. Instead of protecting the
already-formed Rasengan and risking his own health, he allowed his hand to
strike the hard-packed sand of the arena floor first. The Rasengan detonated, sending sand and
dust flying everywhere and completely obscuring Naruto from
view.
Sasuke climbed to his feet, watching the billowing dust cloud
warily. He was glad that he’d
recognized the danger that Naruto’s new technique had represented. If it was as powerful as his own
Chidori, that would have been very painful. He glanced at his hand to make sure that
the San Bubun Azarashi was still active, and nodded when he saw that it
was. He then looked back at the
dust cloud, just in time to see Naruto rocket out of the top. The blond-haired boy was performing hand
seals, so Sasuke immediately began to run, hoping to get to Naruto’s landing
point before Naruto did.
“Have a taste of your own medicine!” Naruto shouted, holding his hands in
a ring around his mouth. Sasuke,
long a veteran of powerful fire skills, recognized the danger immediately, and
leapt straight up, and out of the range of what he knew was coming; he knew the
skill too, but he also knew it’s weakness.
“Shinwa Hana Ka no Jutsu!” Naruto shouted, exhaling into the circle that
his hands formed. From them sprung
fireball after fireball, five in all, that crashed harmlessly down to the ground
below. Naruto’s breath was soon
exhausted, however, and the boy dropped to the ground, landing lightly, and
stood, gasping to recover the air that he’d lost from his mighty
exhalation.
Sasuke landed lightly too, and immediately charged forward at
Naruto. This was the blond-haired
boy’s moment of greatest weakness; Sasuke knew that he’d run out of energy from
dodging long before Naruto ran out of the demon fox’s chakra. This moment of breathlessness was
Sasuke’s best chance, and he took advantage of it. Naruto had just enough time to turn
around before Sasuke’s fingers slammed into his belly, the middle one slipping
right into the depression in Naruto’s jacket formed by his
navel.
“Heaven, Earth, and Hell seal!” Sasuke declared as his hand flared
brightly once more, then snuffed out.
Both boys collapsed to the ground.
Naruto grabbed his head in both hands and rolled away from Sasuke, who
was picking himself up slowly from the ground. /Wow,/ he thought, shaking his
head. /That ate up ALL of my
chakra. Guess this is just taijutsu
now./
“Auuugh!” Naruto screamed, rolling to his knees. “What did you do to me? My head feels like it’s about to
explode!”
“That seal scrambles the hell out of your chakra patterns,” Sasuke
huffed, adopting a defensive fighting stance. “Nothing is usable. Just try and perform a jutsu
now.”
“Fine!” Naruto shouted, crossing his fingers in an all-too familiar
seal. “Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!” he
shouted, waiting expectantly.
Bright blue, then a little red chakra flared around him, soaking into the
air all around him. Naruto roared
with effort, even more red chakra pouring out of him until it looked like he was
the center of a raging bonfire.
Still, not a single clone appeared.
“What?” he said, surprised, as his aura of power died
down.
“I told you already, dobe,” Sasuke taunted, having gotten his breath
back. “It won’t
work.”
“You bastard!” Naruto shouted, his rage blocking out the pain in his
head. The blond-haired boy charged
forward to attack Sasuke. Both drew
kunai, and were soon trading blows.
Naruto led with a vicious backhanded stab from above, which Sasuke batted
away to the left, swaying away from the blade just in case. His left hand, unencumbered, dipped back
into the pouch on his back, and emerged with three shuriken held tightly between
his fingers.
Sasuke’s opponent recovered quickly, almost too quickly. Naruto must have been expecting the
simple defense, and the return upward slash told of it. Sasuke had to step back with his
forward-facing leg so that the kunai wouldn’t carve a line in his chest. As it was, the sharp kunai caught his
trailing shirt, slashing it in twain from the waist to the neck. The kunai just barely missed Sasuke’s
face, and the darker-haired boy paid for his initial overconfidence
dramatically. Naruto used the
momentum gained from his upwards-and-right slash to rotate on his own forward
leg, bringing forward his rear leg for a powerful kick, delivered squarely to
Sasuke’s chest.
The dark-haired boy was sent tumbling backwards, but he held on to his
shuriken and his kunai. As soon as
he wasn’t tumbling constantly, Sasuke threw his shuriken forward. Naruto, who had pressed the advantage,
was forced to stop his charge and dodge to the side to avoid getting impaled by
the three spinning throwing stars.
By the time he was able to re-start his charge, Sasuke had skidded to a
crouching stop. The dour boy made a
few quick cuts to his tattered shirt, then ripped the remnants off, eliminating
a possible point of advantage for Naruto.
From behind him, Sasuke could hear a sudden collective scream of
excitement from many of the females gathered to watch. He had neglected to wear an undershirt
today, and his sweat-drenched torso was exposed for all the world to see. Even Sasuke couldn’t help but spare a
grin of satisfaction at this, but he only had that moment of satisfaction before
Naruto was on him again.
Again Naruto stabbed from above and to the right, but Sasuke wasn’t about
to let him get away with the same feint twice. Sasuke flipped his kunai around in his
hand and caught the point of Naruto’s kunai in the finger-ring of his own. He then slammed an open-handed palm into
Naruto’s solar plexus. Naruto, his
breath lost and his strength momentarily sapped, loosened his grip on his kunai
just enough for Sasuke to twist his and send Naruto’s spinning away. Naruto staggered back a few steps and
Sasuke moved forward, flipping his kunai back to its proper orientation. He then slashed sideways at the smaller
boy, but Naruto grinned and dropped down suddenly. Having feigned the stunning after the
initial blow, he caught Sasuke completely off-guard with his sudden
counterattack. His left leg spun
around, catching Sasuke’s and sending the dark-haired boy tumbling to the
ground. Sasuke’s kunai hit the
ground poorly, and Sasuke was forced to toss it aside to avoid stabbing
himself.
Naruto rolled back, got his feet underneath him, and sprung forward,
hoping to tackle the prone boy.
Sasuke was ready, however, and as Naruto dove onto him, he caught the
smaller boy with his legs, flexed them, and shoved them out, sending Naruto
tumbling away. Sasuke then kick
flipped himself to a standing stance, even as Naruto clambered to his feet as
well.
Almost in unison, the boys charged forward at each other. They traded quick blows with one
another, scoring minor hits and blocking major ones. After this had continued for a short
while, with neither boy gaining the advantage, Naruto reared back and sent a
powerful punch straight for Sasuke’s upper chest. Sasuke realized that he couldn’t block
it, considering the strength of the blow, and threw himself backwards in a
desperate attempt to make Naruto pay for his gamble. Naruto, not expecting such a gymnastic
maneuver from Sasuke, found himself overextended as Sasuke’s hands found the
ground. Naruto looked down just in
time to see Sasuke’s feet coming up vertically in a powerful kick. There was no time to dodge; Naruto took
the full force of the blow to his face as Sasuke continued his hand flip
backwards. The sheer force of the
blow lifted Naruto upwards and backwards, reeling from the unexpected
counter.
Sasuke found his feet quickly, and dashed forward just as Naruto began to
descend from his short, and unwanted, flight. The dark-haired boy winced as his right
foot touched the ground, but he had no time to think of such things. Judging the distance between himself and
Naruto, Sasuke sent himself into a spinning jump, kicking his right foot out as
he rotated. Just as Naruto was
about to touch ground, Sasuke’s foot caught him full in the chest. Naruto was sent flying backwards from
the impact, falling to the ground and tumbling backwards. Then the wall of the arena was there,
and the back of his head hit it, hard.
Pain flared in Naruto’s head for a moment, then everything went
black. The last thing he had seen
was Sasuke falling to the ground, clutching his ankle.
***
Present ***
Naruto sat up with a sigh.
He’d learned when he woke up that the force of the impact had given him a
concussion. Sasuke had overused his
right leg, however, and had sprained his ankle very badly. /If I hadn’t been knocked out by the
damn wall,/ Naruto thought wistfully, /I probably woulda won that fight./ Then he sighed again, and swung down off
the roof. He dropped four floors,
then grabbed the upper side of his windowsill and swung into his apartment. He landed lightly, careful not to wake
his downstairs neighbor. His bed
was unmade, as always. Naruto
pulled his shirt and pants off and tossed them into a corner of his room that he
tossed all of his dirty clothes into.
He noted that the pile was getting pretty large. /Gotta to do laundry tomorrow,/ he
thought as he scratched his armpit and yawned. His alarm clock, a cheap
glow-in-the-dark buzzer, declared the time to be two in the morning. Naruto shook his head and, clad only in
boxers, toppled into his bed.
/Really fucking moody night tonight,/ he thought as sleep finally found him.
The Sasuke/Naruto
Fight: Exhale (Break the Pressure),
by Prodigy.
Everything
Else: Ice Capped, by MCVaffe.
New
Moves:
Jinkaku
Kokan no Jutsu-
Personality Swap Skill (Sakura).
This jutsu allows Inner Sakura to come to the surface as the controlling
personality in Sakura’s body. Inner
Sakura is very aggressive, and has considerably greater taijutsu skill than
Outer Sakura. She is, however,
almost inept at genjutsu.
Ninja-to- Ninja
Sword (Sakura). Not really a jutsu,
but Sakura now wields a ninja-to with a fair measure of skill. Inner Sakura is extremely dangerous with
this weapon, and approaches mastery-level skill with it. A Ninja-to is basically a katana without
the curve. It is also about 2
inches shorter than a katana.
San
Bubun Azarashi no Jutsu-
Three-Part Seal Skill (Sasuke).
This jutsu only works on individuals that have some outside source that
is augmenting their chakra to a greater level than would otherwise be
normal. This seal does not require
direct skin-to-skin contact to function- pressure is enough. If successfully placed, this seal
scrambles the target’s chakra supply completely, and rendering any chakra-based
skills unusable. It does, however,
drain the user of all available chakra, therefore reducing the fight to straight
taijutsu. The Three-Part Seal wears
off after an hour or so.
Translations:
Ichiraku: ‘One Comfort,’ literally. Very cute.
Itadakimasu:
A formal phrase said in Japan at the beginning of a meal. Literally translates as ‘I Receive.’
Shinwa Hana Ka no Jutsu: Literally, ‘Mythical Fire Flower Skill.’ Sasuke used this skill in the battle against the Sound ninja in the canon chuunin exam.