38. Chunin Exams Stage Three: Preliminaries Part 3

“Match Six: Gaara versus Rock Lee.”

I still remember watching this fight in the Anime. The chills. The twist ending. Seeing this match in person is everything I dreamed it would be.

Indescribable.

I’ll try anyway. The fight begins, taijutsu versus sand manipulation granted by Shukaku the One-Tailed Beast (spoiler). Lee uses his speed to try and get around Gaara’s defenses, but the grasping sand is both fluid and tough enough to withstand a punch. One wrong move, and the warrior in a green bodysuit will be mercilessly crushed. Due to a lack of talent in ninjutsu and genjutsu, martial arts is all he has to fall back on.

After being chased off by hands of sand, Lee retreats to the top of the hand seal statue.

“Lee, take them off!” Guy, Lee’s sensei says with a shit-eating grin and a big thumbs-up.

“B-but, Guy-sensei, you said never to do that unless I’m defending the lives of the people precious to me!?!”

“It’s alright, I’ll allow it just this once!” the charismatic, self-described ‘Blue Beast’ says. Happily, Lee removes his hidden ankle weights (the characters for ‘Guts!’ is written on them) at his master’s direction and holds them high.

Kankuro and Tamari whisper back and forth, “Idiot.”

“Heh, heh. There’s no way dropping a few weights will let him keep up with Gaara’s sand.”

When Lee releases his hold on the weights, they plummet to the ground and send up a plume of dust and powdered stone from the impact sight as tall as the hand seal statue. Everyone but Guy and Kakashi stare slack jawed with bulging eyes.

“Go, Lee!”

“Yes, sir!”

The green blur of Lee’s bodysuit appears to teleport behind Gaara, who somehow still blocks with a wave of sand. However, this time, Lee’s punches and kicks are penetrating partway through Gaara’s defenses. Then Lee jumps in the air, flips around, and delivers a heel drop to Gaara’s head that sends the Sunagakure ninja reeling.

For a second, it seems the fight is over, until Gaara’s face cracks and falls away to reveal undamaged features beneath the disguised shell of sand armor coating every inch of skin. The Sunagakure ninja flashes an unhinged, sadistic grin before reforming his armor and continuing the bout. “Is that all?” he asks.

In response, Lee unwraps the bandages on his arms, dashes forward at inhuman speeds to get under Gaara’s guard, and kicks the Sunagakure ninja up high into the air while jumping after to keep pace. Midair, Lee kicks Gaara repeatedly to knock the sand ninja higher at a rapid pace, keeping them ahead of the sand rushing to protect its master. Then Lee wraps Gaara in bandages to keep his opponent from escaping and performs a kind of aerial piledriver that sends them both plunging to the ground, “Front Lotus!”

At first, it seems like the resulting crater contains Gaara’s broken body… but then cracks appear in the shell of the sand armor collapsing inward to reveal nothing inside. Gaara slipped out of his bindings and Body Flickered away in a split second when Lee was distracted by the pain of performing the lotus technique.

A tidal wave of sand blasts Lee into a wall, leaving its own impact crater. The physical strain of Lee’s incredible taijutsu has left him momentarily backlashed and weak. The Front Lotus was meant to be a finishing move.

This is around the time Guy and Kakashi start explaining the Inner Gates to Sakura.

Basically, there are eight ‘limiters’ inside the human body that control the flow of chakra. By overriding these limits through mental discipline, it’s possible to use Taijutsu at a superhuman level that results in severe damage to the body. Lee activated the First Gate of Opening for the Front Lotus, but now…

“Third Gate of Life!”

Lee’s whole body turns red as blood flushes his skin.

“Fourth Gate of Pain!”

Lee explodes forward, tearing up the concrete simply by running. A kick to the chin rockets Gaara into the air. The defensive sand can’t keep up. Instead, Lee delivers a flying kick that sends the Sunagakure ninja shooting away—directly into a punch as Lee dashes ahead of his target to attack from the other side. Lee plays midair soccer with himself as he practically teleports through the air while using Gaara’s body as the ball. All that damage causes the sand armor to crack and flake away.

“Fifth Gate of Closing! Reverse Lotus!!!”

A final earth-shattering punch craters the ground with Gaara at the epicenter. This time, the Sunagakure ninja can’t escape the blow. He doesn’t get up.

Meanwhile, the red fades from Lee’s body as he rolls to a stop on the ground, prone, but conscious. That move took a lot out of him as well.

While the Sunagakure ninja can’t stand after that beating, Gaara can still manipulate sand. Lee is hobbled by the Lotus’s backlash and can’t do more than feebly crawl away before being caught.

“Sand Coffin!”

Crushing sand cripples Lee’s arm and leg. Gaara goes in for the kill, but Guy stops the match. Despite that, Lee somehow manages to stand again—unwilling to stay down even as he loses consciousness.

Both opponents are peak-Genin whose strength probably exceeds many Chunin. There were a few minor differences in the battle from the butterfly effect, but the outcome is unchanged: Gaara narrowly wins while Lee is severely injured.

I have to make sure Lee gets a happy ending.

“Match Seven: Nara Shikamaru versus Akimichi Choji.”

Now we’re talking some serious non-canon bullshit!

Removing the sound trio from the picture and Kabuto’s withdrawal put the organizers in an awkward position. There were seventeen participants at the start of the Preliminaries. That means, unless they ditch the duals altogether, there has to be a three-way bout.

Except, only an idiot would put two teammates together in a three-way. This is the result.

Two friends stand opposed in the arena. Neither are willing to insult the other by surrendering.

“Choji-kun, I don’t stand a chance against your strength.”

“Shikamaru-kun, you know there’s no way I can outsmart you.”

“Then this is brains versus brawn.”

“Don’t hold anything back! Aaaahhh!!!” Choji uses his human bullet tank technique while Shikamaru retreats to the arena’s edge. At the last moment, Shikamaru dodges, and Choji slams the wall in an explosion of rubble.

In the seconds where Choji tries to dislodge himself from the hole in the wall, Shikamaru uses his shadow jutsu to take control of Choji’s body—allowing him to puppet the target using his own movements. Shikamaru stands in the middle of the floor facing his friend. Both Chunin rear back, but one has nowhere to go. Shikamaru goes into bridge pose with his spine arched while Choji slams his head into solid rock.

Choji doesn’t go down.

“Crap, I’ve only got a few minutes.” Shikamaru’s jutsu costs a large amount of chakra to maintain, and Choji’s skull turns out to be really hard.

It becomes a contest of endurance.

Shikamaru stands and slams himself back again and again. Meanwhile, Choji pounds his head into the wall as he’s forced to mirror Shikamaru’s movements over and over.

It’s a battle well fought. The onlookers nod in solemn appreciation of the warriors’ resolve. In the end, Choji falls.

“The winner is Nara Shikamaru!”

As he’s carried away on a stretcher, Choji tells his friend, “You owe me an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“Match Eight: Aburame Shino versus Tsurugi Misumi versus Kankuro.”

Here it is, the final result of my meddling. I suppose the organizers didn’t have much choice in the end. Sticking one of us in the other bouts would have detracted from their entertainment value. All I can guess is the unseen hand simply wants to provide the most interesting matchups.

The three of us square off. Kankuro is a puppet-user, manipulating his deadly toys with chakra strings. Misumi… can turn his limbs into tentacles, I guess? It’s not as impressive as it sounds.

“Let’s double-team this guy,” Misumi says to me. I suspect a trap.

“There is no ‘Konoha’ inside the Chunin Exams.”

I blatantly steal Saskue’s words as I scatter my insects across the field. Both my opponents realize I’ll capitalize on a battle of attrition and charge me. A three-way battle always comes down to who gets ganged up on.

Thankfully, I have my glasses-hidden Sharingan and Byakugan to maximize my movement. Both my enemies only reveal taijutsu techniques, which plays into my hand. Dodging is easy, even two on one. The Byakugan is like having eyes in the back of my head, and the Sharingan is like seeing in slow-motion.

My gourd slows me a bit (it’s a ‘ninja tool’ so I have to wear it to justify keeping it with me), but I use it to block a few strikes to preserve the image I’m using it as a ninja tool.

““Mph!”” I hear my two beauties inside, but the soft padding that protects them from sudden impacts muffles their cries of surprise.

Misumi gets frustrated and lunges at me. I dodge, then kick his chest while he’s off balance. My blow sends him careening into Kankuro.

Mr. Noodle Arms is more than willing to take what he can get. Misumi grapples Kankuro and attempts to break the sand ninja’s neck. The Soft Physique body modification is useless when applied against a nonliving puppet, as Kankuro proves.

The sand ninja reveals he was the bandaged figure on ‘his’ back all along, while he’d disguised his puppet to look like himself and carry him around. Kankuro’s puppet Karasu (or ‘crow’) constricts Misumi until every bone in the Konoha Genin breaks.

As Misumi slumps limply to the ground, I go to swarm Kankuro with my insects, but the sand ninja isn’t willing to show any more cards today.

“I surrender.”

Disappointing, but not unexpected. Our slated rematch may or may not occur, but I’m satisfied with this outcome.

A super anticlimactic way to end the Preliminaries, but that was true of the Anime!

“The finals will commence in one month from now.”

The winners are: Gaara, Neji, Shikamaru, Ino, Naruto, Sasuke, Tenten, and myself.

Anko comes around with a box full of lots for us to draw. I’m not sure what will come of this, considering how far off-script I’ve taken the Chunin Exams.

When Tenten takes her lot, Anko gives her a weird look I’m not sure how to interpret. Whatever. We announce our number from the lot we drew, and the Hokage reveals the Finals Tournament Bracket.

I grin like a demon.