Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Naruto of the Mirage ❯ Chapter 14 ( Chapter 14 )

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Dosu Kinuta

 

The two names fell into place quickly on the board, but in the arena, the two combatants took their time before meeting on the floor of the arena.

 

“Next match…hajime!” Hayate motioned towards the ground before leaping away. `This match should be good.' He thought. `The best of the Sound ninja versus one of the most promising ninja we have.'

 

Both competitors didn't waste any time in attacking, Sasuke threw a number of kunai and shuriken at Dosu, while the bandaged boy simply held up his right arm, and the metal projectiles simply clanged off the melody arm. He flicked the metal of the arm, and launched his attack against Sasuke. The Uchiha simply smirked (having inserted ear plugs before the match started) and quickly activated his sharingan. Seeing no chakra in the attack, Sasuke could only conclude one thing.

 

`He really has no control over the direction of the sound waves.'

 

Thinking quickly, Sasuke charged Dosu, who was a bit surprised that his technique didn't have any effect on the sharingan wielder. The two traded blows, Sasuke used his superior speed to his advantage, and Dosu relied on his brute strength. Sasuke used his mobility to slip under Dosu's guard and land a punch to his stomach, doubling the boy over. Sasuke had recovered more of his chakra than Naruto, and had enough to use his sharingan for a while, but he still considered himself woefully low on chakra at the time. He'd have to stick to taijutsu until it came time for the finish. As he slipped behind his opponent, Sasuke attached an exploding note to Dosu's…haystack. Leaping away, he channeled some chakra into the note and was rewarded with an explosion that sent Dosu's body into the ground.

 

Sasuke merely smirked and turned around to face the smoldering form of his opponent.

 

“I'm not going to fall for a worthless tactic like that; I'd get back up if I were you.” He ordered.

 

Dosu slowly got up from the floor, the haystack on his back, discarded. It clattered to the floor, where it flipped upside down, revealing that it was a thick metal hemisphere, covered in hay. He hadn't taken any damage from the explosion.

 

They didn't exchange anymore words, merely tore into each other once more, Dosu gained some speed, with out that metal shell attached to his back he felt much lighter. Sasuke was beginning to become frustrated. Who knew that Dosu would be such a good taijutsu fighter?

 

`Of course if he could beat Lee, than I should have expected it.' He thought to himself. He had to be careful of Dosu's right arm, if he got hit, than the sonic waves from the melody arm would travel through his body, bypassing the earplugs.

 

Sasuke dodged another right hand as Dosu's punch smacked against the ground instead of Sasuke as intended. Sasuke took the opportunity to attack Dosu's face with his knee. The attack landed, but Dosu barely noticed it. Sasuke was shocked that his attack had little to no discernable effect. He was just as surprised when the Sound ninja's left fist thundered into his stomach.

 

“Oof!” Sasuke grunted as the wind was released from his lungs. He barely had enough presence of mind to avoid the follow through attack from the melody arm, and he jumped away to safety.

 

“Is that all you've got?” Dosu inquired, sounding bored.

 

Sasuke sneered at the boy and took a deep breath of air, before launching another attack. This was on a new level than the previous assaults; Dosu barely had time to react to the swift movements of Sasuke's arms and hands, this time complete with Kunai. Dosu stumbled back from the ferocity of the attack, giving Sasuke all the time that he required to make his move.

 

Leaping forward, Sasuke's kunai flashed forward towards Dosu's head. The heavily bandaged boy tried to fend off the attack, but was too slow. The Kunai sliced through the bandages surrounding Dosu's face. As the gauze began to unfurl, the face of Kinuta Dosu became visible for the first time. His face was riddled with scars, some old and some newer, but the main feature noticeable were the thick headphones covering his right ear. Sasuke made an attempt to steal the ear piece, but was halted by Dosu.

 

“That wouldn't have worked when I was only using one eye, why do you believe it would work when I have all my faculties intact?” He asked, the scared mouth moving very little. Sasuke launched himself at Dosu once more.

 

The battle raged on for a time. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, both teens were becoming exhausted, Sasuke refusing to use chakra, and Dosu mimicking him. Both were sporting various injuries, Sasuke had taken a number of left hand to his torso and a few knees to the face, he also had the sneaking suspicion that he had broken some bones in his fingers, while Dosu had numerous cuts and large welts where the ring of Sasuke's kunai had impacted his head, creating fractures. Neither would yield, and there was no end in sight. As the combatants once more engaged each other, Dosu caught Sasuke completely off guard by kicking him in the side with his left foot. It was the first time that Dosu had used his legs as a weapon and the force knocked Sasuke towards Dosu's incoming right arm. The melody arm vibrated at a specific frequency and went to work. Sasuke immediately felt ill and would have vomited due to the foreign vibrations had he any solid food in his stomach. Instead he lost his orientation and was wobbling back and forth.

 

“Finally, this fight will end.” Dosu said, breathing heavily.

 

Sasuke fell to his knees and barely noticed Dosu approaching him. He tried to move, but his body didn't want to follow his wishes and he stayed rooted to the spot. The boy from Oto continued to draw closer, drawing a kunai as he walked.

 

`Come on…come on, damn it!' Sasuke willed his body to move, to no avail. The only part of his body he felt like he had control over was his hands. His hands! Of course, he hadn't performed any ninjutsu in a while, and he had nearly forgotten that he could. He flashed threw the few hand seals for his most destructive jutsu, wishing to end this fight one way or another.

 

“Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu (Fire type: Dragon fire technique)

 

Since no one had been able to put up a resistance after one of sonic assaults, Dosu was taken by surprise as fire engulfed his body. He let out a great cry of pain, before he fell backwards, still burning. The medical crew immediately ran to his side, but it was too late. Sasuke had killed his first person.

 

“Um, winner Uchiha Sasuke.” Hayate declared the match over. Sasuke shakily made his way up to the balcony where he was greeted by an anxious Sakura and a pensive Naruto.

 

“Sasuke-kun, you were so cool!” The pink haired wonder declared, launching herself at him. He didn't have the energy to dodge, and was nearly crushed to death by Sakura.

 

“Um, Sakura, I think he may need to rest after that fight.” Naruto practically demanded, prying her off his brother. Sasuke shot him a look that said `thank you' quite plainly.

 

“The next match will now be decided.” Hayate wheezed.

 

Rock Lee vs. Akado Yoroi

 

“Yosh! It is time for my youthfulness to shine my way to victory!” He cried as he practically jumped to the arena floor. Oh who am I kidding, he did jump to the floor and then quickly ran to the middle to wait for his opponent.

 

One of Kabuto's teammates made his way to the arena floor where he sized up the overly enthusiastic taijutsu specialist.

 

Hayate started the match and Yoroi charged Lee who had taken up a sideways pose, his right foot facing forward and his right arm extended with his wrist hanging downwards. His left arm was held behind his back, hand clenched in a fist. As Yoroi charged, Lee didn't make a move until the older boy was already attacking him. Many in the audience thought that Lee would be on the receiving blow of the encounter, but were sadly mistaken, when Lee's outstretched hand merely slapped Yoroi's away. The duo quickly entangled themselves in a taijutsu match, with Lee winning, but not showing more skill than was necessary. The older genin was becoming annoyed at his opponent, and decided to play his trump card. His right hand became enveloped in a blue glow. Lee noticed the change, but didn't change is approach to the match. Yoroi began to swipe his right hand at the boy, who simply dodged and wove around the one sided attack. He became so absorbed with the right hand of his opponent that he failed to notice when the left hand snuck around his guard and grabbed at his arm. The fact that someone had snuck under his guard was more of a shock than anything to the enthusiastic taijutsu specialist. Yoroi took the lapse of concentration to sneak his right hand in and grabbed Lee's neck in a choke hold.

 

“Now you can feel it, my ability. I am siphoning off your chakra; soon you will be as weak as a new born baby.” The veiled boy goaded.

 

“I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have so little chakra in my body that I use very little of it for physical modification.” Lee smiled at his opponent, before using his right elbow to knock his attacker away. Lee quickly regained his footing, and launched into his favorite combo. Lee ran at his opponent and dropped under his guard before connecting a sharp right foot to Yoroi's chin that launched the older boy into the air. Lee quickly followed him up and seemed to attach himself to his opponent.

 

“I may not be allowed to use `that' move unless the situation calls for it, but I can improvise.” He proclaimed as he landed numerous punches to Yoroi's back and kidneys. As the two began to fall, Lee twisted over in mid air and launched a sharp snap kick into the boys gut, sending him into the ground. Yoroi simply coughed, before passing out.

 

“Winner, Rock Lee.” Hayate said, before quickly covering his ears in anticipation of the speech that was to come from the boy's sensei.

 

“Lee! Your fires of youth burn so brightly that you took it upon yourself to further your repertoire of moves for your own style of taijutsu! I am very proud of you!” Gai bellowed at his student, who immediately broke down into tears at the praise from his role model.

 

Most of the remaining genin were talking about the previous matches, and staring at Sasuke and Lee in awe at their fights. Sasuke had the toughest fight so far, and Lee had the fastest most bone breaking fight so far.

 

Aburame Shino vs. Akimichi Chouji

 

Chouji descended the stairs to the arena floor nervously. Shino was so mysterious that he didn't know much about his opponent. Shino didn't say a word as he entered the combat arena, he simply stared at Chouji.

 

As soon as Hayate started the fight, a wave of black seemed to form behind Chouji and sweep towards him, cutting off a route of escape for the big boned boy.

 

“These are my Kikai bugs.” Shino stated, his voice emotionless, but not cold, like Zabuza or Kakashi during their fight. “They feed on chakra, if you attack me, I will have them latch on to you and slowly deplete you of your chakra. If you attack my bugs, I will attack you. You cannot win. Chouji thought over his options carefully. He hung out with Shikamaru, so he did pick up some practice in thinking through his options. Unfortunately, he didn't have any techniques that took out a large space, just his Bubun Baika no Jutsu (Partial Multi-size technique), but that what he needed was a large range distance attack. He simply didn't have one.

 

“You're right, I don't have a way to defeat you, Shino, I guess you win.” The boy admitted defeat gracefully, but not without a bit of remorse in his voice.

 

“Winner, Aburame Shino.” Hayate confirmed.

 

Sabaku no Temari vs. Nara Shikamaru

 

“How troublesome, I have to fight a girl.” Shikamaru whined.

 

A vein on Temari's head throbbed noticeably.

 

“What did he say?” She gritted her teeth together, promising pain to the lazy boy who was slowly making his way to the arena floor.

 

“Next fight, begin!”

 

Temari was about to unleash a large amount of pain onto the pony tailed boy before her, but found that she could move.

 

“What the…” She asked. Involuntarily her head pointed to the ground, where she noticed that a dark band connected her to Shikamaru.

 

“I know I'm not supposed to hit a girl, but conversely, I shouldn't loose to one either. I guess the only option that I have left is to make you concede.” He drawled.

 

“Well tough luck with that, I'll never give up.” Temari sounded brave, but mostly it was fear of what Gaara would do to her if she simply gave up.

 

Shikamaru let out a sigh and he pantomimed shifting the fan Temari still had strapped to her back. Once it was straight, he bowed foreword, Temari copying him completely. With a sudden jerk of his head, he forced Temari to smack her head into the metal casing of her own fan, incapacitating her, or at the least concussing her. She slumped to the ground dazed, but not unconscious.

 

“Do you give up now?” He asked her.

 

Still dazed, Temari didn't hear him, but her head nodded up and down, signaling her forfeit.

 

The medical staff came onto the floor to check her over, and took her away to be treated for a concussion, as the next fight flashed up on the board.

 

Tsuchi Kin vs. Haruno Sakura

 

“So, Naruto, who do you think will win this one?” Chouji asked his friend.

 

“Sakura will win this.” Naruto said no doubt in his voice at all. “She's worked really hard since we graduated, and she's good enough to win this fight.”

 

Down in the arena, Kin had thrown a pair of senbon with bells attached to the ends at Sakura, who had dodged them by simply moving out of the way. Not wasting an opportunity, she charged the sound kunoichi, only to suddenly become ill half way there. She fell to her knees and gripped her sides, breathing deeply.

 

“You are at my mercy, pinky, time I finished this and brought a bit of dignity to the sound village.” She drew a kunai and approached the unmoving girl.

 

“Naruto! I thought you said that Sakura would win?” Chouji questioned.

 

“She will, just watch.”

 

As Kin drew even with her opponent, she made to stab Sakura's head with the knife, only for it to become lodged in a stump. She then felt the cold steel of the pink haired kunoichi's kunai at her neck.

 

“Your genjutsu was too easy to get out of, if I were you, I'd quit now.” She warned the brunette.

 

Kin made to turn around and stab Sakura, but she quickly found herself in a genjutsu.

 

“Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu (Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique)” Sakura trapped Kin in her own worst nightmare, causing the same reaction that she had experienced during the bell test with Kakashi.

 

“Winner, Haruno Sakura!” Hayate declared before he signaled for the final two opponents to come to the floor of the arena.

 

Hyuuga Hinata vs. Tsurugi Misumi

 

The final member of Kabuto's team, as well as the final member of Team Eight faced each other in center of the arena waiting for the match to officially to begin. Hinata looked like she'd rather be somewhere else; while Misumi looked as if…well you couldn't tell since he covered his entire face with cloth.

 

“Hajime!”

 

Hinata dropped into a basic jyuken stance, left leg slid in front of the right leg, the palm of her left hand open and facing her thigh. Her right arm was slightly extended, palm once more open, facing her opponent. Misumi charged at the dark haired girl, right arm cocked for a sharp punch. Hinata didn't move, waiting for him to make the first move. He did…five feet from her. His arm stretched out and rocketed forward, aiming for her face. She quickly dodged it, and went to counter attack, as had been engrained into her training since a very young age, but was halted by his other hand stretching out and attempting to strike her again.

 

Hinata blocked this attack and slid under his outstretched arm, aiming for his abdomen. Suddenly, his right fist turned around in mid air and began to return to him, aiming to go through Hinata as it did. Of course, Hinata's byakugan picked it up immediately and she was able to adjust herself to avoid the fist from behind.

 

This trend continued for a number of minutes, Misumi would attempt to keep the fight long distance and Hinata would try and close that gap. On his next exchange, Misumi threw a number of shuriken at the Hyuuga heiress, and then shot both his arms behind the projectiles, created a layered attack. Not having too many options, Hinata deflected the shuriken back at the attacking arms, but the metal plating woven onto her opponent's gloves stopped them from doing any major damage. His arms crossed over each other in mid air so that his right was over top of his left and Hinata was forced to attack his hands.

 

This is exactly what he wanted, Hinata's open palm attacks acted more like a glove than anything else, and she ended up catching Misumi's fists, which he then stuck to hers with chakra. He quickly closed the gap between them, now that she couldn't close his tenketsu, and quickly moved his arms apart, violently breaking Hinata's guard. He was able to land a head but, and since he wore his protector, the damage was magnified. While she was still dazed, he stretched his body around her and began to constrict against her body, squeezing the air from her lungs. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. But that was impossible; his abdomen was currently behind the girl, how could she injure it? He felt another sharp pain in the same place, magnifying the damage of the first attack. Hinata continued to push chakra out of her finger tips in an extremely thin line. The normal jyuken strike emits chakra from the palm of the hand where it is easiest. This spike is about one to two inches in diameter and is cylindrical in shape. The chakra that Hinata was using was much, much thinner. It was comparable to a hypodermic needle and originated from the very tip of her middle finger, thus allowing her to extend the range of her strikes to a few inches away from her hand. Since Misumi hadn't been able to bind her wrists with his technique, Hinata was quickly able to relieve the pressure, the effects of her jyuken equated to the damage of over fifty punches in only ten strikes. Misumi crumpled to the floor clutching his stomach, the chakra attacks of the Hyuuga clan had created an ulcer and the pain of his stomach acid spilling into his stomach was excruciating.

 

The medical staff quickly carted him off the floor, declaring Hinata the winner of the final bout of the preliminary matches. Once more the Hokage spoke up.

 

“Congratulations to all of you who have won your fights. As you are aware, these were preliminary fights to weed down the competitors for the third task of the exams. That task will be in exactly one month, as I am sure you will all need to rest up and train, now that everyone has seen your techniques. You will draw lots to determine your next opponent.”

 

One by one the victorious ninja withdrew a slip of paper from a box and opened them to reveal their fates.

 

“When I call your number, show your lot to the coordinator and wait around for a few minutes more. I have one more announcement to make.” Sarutobi ordered.

 

One by one the fighter's numbers were called, until the bracket was complete.

 

Nara Shikamaru vs. Hyuuga Hinata

 

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Sabaku no Gaara

 

Aburame Shino vs. Rock Lee

 

Mitarashi Naruto vs. Sabaku no Kankuro

 

Hyuuga Neji vs. Haruno Sakura

 

“These will be the fighters you must face in one month's time. Due to the odd number of people in the draw, the winner of matches three and four will fight before he must face the winner of match five. As for my announcement…it is necessary that you know how the decision for rank advancement will be made. Just because you win your fight, it doesn't mean that you will be promoted. To gain the rank of chuunin, you must show the qualities of one. Even if you loose you could still earn the rank, but the advantage of winning is that you will have more opportunities to show your skills. I'm sure you will all do your villages proud.”

 

With that the participants were dismissed to rest and focus on their training. Team Seven was holding an impromptu meeting along with Anko. They were outlining their plans for training. Kakashi's original plan was to train both Naruto and Sasuke since he wouldn't have to focus on them solely and Anko would help Sakura. But as they say, `the best laid plans of mice and men…' With Sasuke facing Gaara, and Sakura drawing Neji, they would both need more concentration and individual attention than Kakashi could give if he took both of the boys to train. He didn't want to, but it looked as if Naruto would have to find a temporary sensei for a month.

 

“Naruto, I know we had planned for me to take you and Sasuke for the month but since Sasuke drew Gaara…” Kakashi started to explain his reasoning.

 

“I'm not going with you.” Naruto plainly stated. Everyone looked at him shocked. Naruto wasn't the type to miss out on a training exercise. “Gaara is a very strong opponent and it will take Sasuke all month to have a legitimate shot at defeating him. I don't want to put my brother's life in danger simply because I needed some training for an opponent I can already beat.”

 

Everyone was silent once again, before Kakashi's face split into a grin.

 

“Well, Naruto, if you keep doing things as grown up as that, you might make Chuunin this time!”

 

With that, Kakashi left with a tired Sasuke stumbling behind him.

 

“Naruto, are you sure you'll be all right?” Anko asked her son, making sure that he wasn't put out about the training

 

“I'm fine Kaa-chan; I just don't know who I should ask to train with.” The one time blond replied.

 

“I'm sure you'll find someone.” She replied, ruffling his hair. “I won't be gone all month but it'll be a few days before I'll see you again, so don't slack off while I'm gone.” Slipping back into sadistic mode, the rest of the threat left unsaid, but Naruto got the message.

 

As his mother and teammate were leaving the arena, Naruto thought of something.

 

“Kaa-chan! I want you to let Sakura know about my limit, she saw most of my abilities in the forest so she deserves to know.” He called out.

 

Anko simply nodded before dragging her slave out of the building. “Don't forget, Tsunade will be here in about five days so make sure you get her Ok before doing something stupid.” Anko replied, finally exiting the doors.

 

Naruto smiled as he watched his mom leave the arena. With Orochimaru on the loose he was worried about her, she didn't know it, but when he first moved in with her, her nightmares of her times with her former sensei woke him, and he vowed to extract revenge on the person who harmed his mother. Clasping the seal that was burned black into his neck, he reaffirmed that vow and promised that one day, Orochimaru wouldn't walk this earth.

 

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