章 48: Preliminaries VI

Inside my Inner Space, the Earth Flame was glowing as bright as the Mist Flame, indicating their purity were equal; the mural rumbled, like a tremor inside my Inner Space, the Mist and Earth Flame fighting for dominance, they were evenly matched, neither submitting, the Mist tuned is attention to the Storm, trying to use it as a source of power, the Earth quickly noticed it and attempt to do the same, the Storm grew restless, enraged by the other two flames, the fight stimulate it and reached the same purity as the other two, now a three-way fight between my Flames has begun, the tremors kept getting stronger by the second, until the mural fell, to the pressure of Earth, the Storm reduced the pieces to dust, and I felt their power abandoning me, as they extinguished, only the mist remained.

The Mist descended to the dust and joined the other two Flames in the oblivion, extinguishing, leaving only me in the darkness of my Inner Space, I reached for the dust, infusing it with all my essence refusing to give into despair, refusing to give up before I completed the mission I set for myself, the mission to protect my loved ones, Mom, Ino, Aunt Kurenai, Lee, Neji, Guy-Sensei, and even Naruto.

"REBORN!" I shouted, trying to summon my Dying Will Flames, resolving to fight with myself to the death if necessary, my Inner Space trembled once more, with more intensity than ever before, I felt my Chakra going crazy inside myself, the water that represented it came in as a tsunami, washing everything away, but still after all that display, there was nothing but dust and water, when everything calmed down.

I was about to give up, when an indigo light sparked, and again and again, until it became a small Flame, a Flame that used the dust as fuel, growing bigger and bigger, until it was nothing else to consume, I extended my arm willing the Flame to fulfill its purpose, Construct, the Flame glowed brighter than ever before, blinding me, when I recovered my sight, in its place was a crystalline dodecahedron, about the size of a football soccer ball, the dodecahedron flew to my hand and levitated in place.

Inside one of its faces the Mist Flame was glowing, quickly the Storm Flame joined, followed by the Earth Flame, neither fighting each other but with the same purity, it turned without leaving my hand, and three faces glowed at the same time, a pale blue light with the word Water inscribe, a deep brown with the word Earth inscribed, and an intense yellow with the word Lighting, then two new faces glowed, a silver one with the word Storm, and a purple one with the word Magnet, the dodecahedron left my hand, returning to its place, spinning around, glowing and making a light show in the darkness like a beacon, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

Gaara's fight was being interrupted, Hayate and Asuma had to intervene before he managed to kill Choji, who was in a sorry state, multiple cuts, bruises and fractures all over his body, the only reason Gaara stopped was because he had orders to restrain himself until the joint operation with Orochimaru during the finals, he officially won the fight, barely keeping his mind away from a murder spree, he went back to his place, Choji was taken out of the arena, immediately by a medic team, Asuma going with them after asking the other Jonins to take care of Shikamaru and Ino, who were left behind.

Hayate stood once more at the center of the arena, calling the last two participants of the preliminaries, Rock Lee and Dosu Kinuta, Lee jumped from the balcony to the ground level, Dosu did the same not wasting time, eager for a revenge against Lee.

"This time you don't have your friend to save you" Lee said, in his battle stance, one arm in his back and the other extended with his palm facing him.

"Neither do you" Dosu replied, pulling his sleeve, reveling the device used for his sound-based attacks.

Dosu charged towards Lee with one jump, his arm bent as a hook, Lee jumped backwards, not bothering to block or barely dodge he went all the way back to the wall, using it as a platform to spring back towards Dosu, whose attack was ineffective, after Lee figured the range of the sound waves, Lee kicked Dosu in the head with the Leaf Whirlwind, then he swept his legs and finished with one to the back, sending Dosu high in the air, Lee was about to jump in the air, when he suddenly fell to the ground, bending a knee with some blood in his ears.

"I just need to move my arm, to produce the soundwaves" Dosu said recovering in the air, falling directly above Lee, positioning himself for a final attack, an explosion took place, lifting dust and sand from the ground, no one able to see beyond it, after a few seconds, Dosu was standing there, Lee nowhere to be found, I noticed that Dosu was standing on Lee's weights.

"OOOOOOSH!" Lee yelled from the hand seal statue, flickering from his position before Dosu had the chance to even look at him, Lee was toying with him, mixing faints and attacks surrounding Dosu, leaving the area before the sound waves caught him, he had the fight in the bag, after a minute of taking a beating that probably felt like an hour to Dosu, he fell to the ground unconscious.

Lee was crying, waiting for Hayate to declare him the winner of the match, Guy-Sensei doing the same, saying how proud he was of his three students, and how he had the best Team, since we managed to pass to the third test without losing a member in the preliminaries and that this is a better feeling than the one he gets when he defeats Kakashi in a duel.