[GUtW]—❈—51:: Round One: Fight! [IV]

Naruto grins. "I'm gonna blow you away," he says.

The gong rings, and just like he said, Naruto blows him away.

To be honest, it can hardly even be called a fight.

—❈—

Sakura's match is the sixteenth and final match of the day, and before it there are a few noteworthy ones.

Temari's match for instance, which lasts about as long as Naruto's (the shortest match so far) did, before she, much like Naruto, blew away her opponent with her huge fan.

Of course, since, bar the fan, Naruto had done virtually the same thing in his own fight, and had the good fortune of fighting first, people inevitably compare her performance with Naruto's.

No one has said anything yet, but they will, and Temari obviously knows this. And it's pretty clear that she doesn't appreciate it.

Thankfully, besides shooting Naruto some nasty looks, she does nothing about it. For now. Because, it's quite obvious that if she meets Naruto on the arena she certainly intends to prove to everyone that she is the superior wind jutsu user.

Which, in my opinion, she obviously is. She's clearly more skilled and likely has a wider array of jutsu in her repertoire.

Despite this though, I don't really see her beating Naruto in a fight. Certainly not without great effort on her part at the very least.

After Temari's match comes a handful of other notable figures, most memorable among them being Omoi, Karui, Dosu, the fat boy who's been sitting quietly beside Kurotsuchi all this time, Akatsuchi, and of course, Gaara.

Omoi's fight is a beautiful display of kenjutsu prowess, and my sharingan hungrily sucks it all up, permanently imprinting it into my memory in perfect detail.

He is remarkably skilled with that blade. So skilled, in fact, that I can't help but feel a flash of envy.

Well, no matter. What's his is mine now, all that's required of me is to put in the required physical conditioning, and odds are good I'll be just as proficient as he is soon enough.

That is the power of the sharingan.

Unlike, Omoi, whose display was like poetry with a blade, Karui's is like a cranky tigress that can spit lightning using an unfortunate Leaf-nin as a chew toy.

The Leaf-nin survives, without any truly serious injuries in fact (looks like for all her hot-headedness, she does understand restraint), but by the time she's done with him, Karui has securely cemented her position as one of the ones to watch this tournament.

Next up among the memorables is Dosu.

The Sound-nin's fight is brutal and short, like he took the opportunity to work out his rage at Kurotsuchi for what she did to his teammate to his opponent.

By the time the match is called, the Waterfall-nin who's had the misfortune of going up against Dosu is passed out on the arena with multiple broken bones. Though, I notice, nothing irreparably so.

Dosu returns to the loge, giving Kurotsuchi a meaningful look as he takes his seat.

The Stone-nin ignores him, and Dosu's face twists into a rictus of rage.

Akatsuchi's (Kurotsuchi's teammate) fight is nothing fancy.

In fact, the huge fourteen year old fights exactly as one would expect from a stereotypical Stone-nin, with lots of earth jutsu, and with a solid, almost stationary fighting style that is just as much defensive as it is offensive.

It quickly becomes obvious however, that there's little that's typical about Akatsuchi. For one, he has a dazzling array of jutsu in his repertoire, almost comically so.

It's as though for every attack his opponent (a skilled Leaf-nin who would have won handily against most of the other contestants in the exam) can think up, Akatsuchi has the perfect counter and three more besides.

And when she finally decides to get in close and engage him in taijutsu, it's almost like fighting a mountain… or an Akimichi; strong, unbreakable, and immovable.

Honestly, if Akatsuchi weren't clearly lacking all the markers for it I've observed with the sharingan from years of schooling with Chōji, I would wonder if he's maybe some illicit Akimichi spawn bred by Stone.

By the end of the match, Akatsuchi's opponent has exhausted herself trying to land a single meaningful attack on him, and the fight ends when, tired and more than a little frustrated, the Leaf-nin gets careless, and Akatsuchi lands a single, heavy kick on her chest.

She flies almost fifty feet, crashes hard on the ground, and when she tries to rise, collapses again.

The match is over.

A couple more matches come and go, and then the fourteenth match; Gaara's.

Ever since Kakashi had told us about Gaara's and Kurotsuchi's statuses as progeny of Kage, and especially after Kurotsuchi's display in her match, my teammates (and me too, to be honest) have been curious to see what Gaara can do.

When Gaara finally takes the field at the fourteenth match, we still don't really see it.

The match ends too quickly.

As soon as the gong rings, sand pours forth from Gaara's gourd and entombs his opponent from the neck down.

"I can squeeze and shatter every bone in your body," Gaara says softly, "or you can surrender. Please, surrender."

His opponent surrenders.

I hold back a sigh. Looks like not being a bloodlusted psychopath didn't affect his skills at all.

Damn. A clear-headed Gaara with his skills intact… that's not an opponent I would face with complete confidence, especially since I don't have The Chidori and The Jutsu Negation Technique likely won't work all that well on his sand. If at all.

"So, um, Sensei," Sakura says. "What's your advice for fighting that guy?"

Kakashi looks at her. "Keep your distance," he says seriously, then to Naruto, he continues; "Create your clones and cast as many wind jutsu as you can. Hopefully it'll mess with his control. As for you…" he turns to me and pauses contemplatively.

"Do you know any lightning justu?" he asks.

I 'know' quite a few. In fact, thanks to the sharingan,my repertoire of lightning jutsu has almost doubled in the last few hours.

But I know what Kakashi is really asking; how many lightning jutsu have I practiced and can reliably count on in a fight. And to that the answer is—

"Two," I say.

The Lightning Fist jutsu and The Lightning Wire jutsu, both C-rank.

"Good," Kakashi says, completely serious. "Use them. Use them a lot. Earth is weak against Lightning; hopefully that applies to his sand."

"And if it doesn't?" I ask.

"Improvise," Kakashi says.

Right. What stellar advice from my S-rank jōnin-sensei.

Finally, after one more match, it's Sakura's turn, and her opponent is the last of the Sound-nin.

Kin Tsuchi (Sound) vs. Sakura Haruno (Leaf)

Sakura takes a breath. "My turn," she says and rises.

"Go kick her butt, Sakura," Naruto cheers loudly, even though she's still standing right in front of us.

Kin shoots the blonde a nasty look, then makes her way out of the loge.

"Be memorable," Kakashi says.

Sakura nods at him, then she looks at me.

I look right back at her.

Seconds pass, five, eight, ten, Sakura waiting for me to give her some word of encouragement.

Finally, I say; "In the time you've spent standing here, you could have won the fight already. Get going."

She smiles, cheeks turning a little pink.

"Right," she says, then, to everybody's surprise, Sakura walks over to the railing at the edge of the loge to keep the careless observer from falling onto the unsuspecting spectators below, and she jumps over it.

Then Sakura casually air-walks over the heads of the gaping spectators down to the arena.

"Sakura's so cool," Naruto gushes, as expected, missing the true weight of Sakura's actions.

Most jōnin can't air-walk. Kick off the air in a crude imitation of it, sure, but, actual air-walking, like Sakura does so casually, is one of, if not the, ultimate expression of chakra control.

Most people, no matter how hard they train will simply never get to that level. It's like with people like Naruto who have such large chakra reserves; the right biological advantage is required.

So, for Sakura, a twelve year old genin with a barely month-old career to possess that level of control, she automatically just went from being another impressive rookie, to announcing to the world that she is someone unique.

It's brilliant.

Sakura reaches the arena, the manner in which she got there, and the fact that even now, she stands on the air, a clear foot off the sands of the arena floor, building up the audience's anticipation for the coming fight to an all-time high.

Everyone wants to see what the girl who can walk on air can do.

The announcer can definitely sense the anticipation, because he doesn't waste time on the introductions like he usually does, getting through them efficiently and even building up the audience's anticipation even further with a few well-placed words.

Before the match starts however, Kin can't help but speak her piece.

"You think you can intimidate me by showing off your control?" she scoffs. "I'm going to knock you out on these sands you feel too high and mighty to step on."

Sakura cocks an eyebrow. "Like my teammate said, 'action speaks louder than words'," is her only reply.

The gong rings.

Kin begins to cast a jutsu, but Sakura shoots a chakra string at her shoulder, and when it attaches, she pulls the Sound-nin to her with all her considerable strength.

Kin may not have seen the chakra string when it came at her, but she feels its effects on her, and breaking it is a simple matter of flaring her chakra.

Sakura though has already pulled Kin to herself, and Kin flaring her chakra does not stop that momentum, so the Sound-nin decides to turn Sakura's attack on her.

She comes in with a kick aimed right for Sakura's face.

Sakura grabs Kin's ankle, and whips the girl into the ground.

There's a boom! and an explosion of sand and dust from where the Sound-nin's body impacts the ground, and when it clears, it reveals her broken, passed out form embedded several inches into the earth.

Right, that's the thing about Sakura; she doesn't just have great control, she's also really strong.

The match is called; Sakura is the winner.

The crowd goes wild, and after bowing to them, Sakura returns to her seat the same way she left.

Throughout her fight, her feet did not once touch the ground.

—❈—

A/N: thanks for reading.

I'm thinking of writing a Hokage interlude for the next chapter, but I don't know... I'm worried I might mess it up.