"Spear!" Tenten shouted, and the puppet carrying the weapon in question tossed it to her.
Tenten snatched the weapon out of the air, and after giving it a twirl to point it downwards, she plunged it into the ground in one quick motion, before pulling it out with a flourish.
The spear's tip was tinged crimson with blood!
Half a second later, the ground spat out Shino, who clumsily rolled away from Tenten, clutching his bleeding shoulder. Tenten lunged at Shino, thrusting her weapon at him; her spear's shaft sliding out of her palm until she was only holding on to it with one hand by the heel, for extra range.
"Tenten, watch out!" Sakura cried out. "It's a trap!"
Tenten had overextended past her puppets, overlooking the presence of the insects on the ground, which had been left behind by Shino's Insect Clone! The insects rose as one, like a tsunami, before crashing down on Tenten, leaving her buried under a mass of parasitic Kikaichū…
Shino rose to his feet and dusted himself off, before calling off his insects, not wanting them to kill Tenten…
Except…
"Looking for me?" Tenten called out.
Startled, Shino spun around to look behind him— and there stood Tenten, armed this time with a pair of sai… Had he been fighting a Shadow Clone all this time!?
"Close in!" Tenten shouted as she threw her weapons at him, forcing him to duck.
Her puppets encircled Shino, leaving him nowhere to escape. And then… Tenten disappeared.
…and reappeared within the encirclement behind Shino's back, brandishing this time a pair of tonfa in her two hands. She moved in, unleashing a ten-hit combo into his body, before vanishing again.
Shino turned on the spot, flailing wildly at her, but Tenten was already gone. From the audience's perspective, it was like watching a repeat of the Rock Lee versus Haruno Sakura fight; with Lee flickering rapidly around Sakura, advancing to land a strike and then retreating before she could retaliate!
'It's not Shadow Clones, and it's not the Body Flicker, either!' Inner Sakura said in amazement. 'She's making her puppets Reverse-Summon her in rapid succession to teleport! If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's almost like Tenten's trying to show off her mastery of Space-Time Ninjutsu to make the village give her the Flying Thunder God Jutsu!'
System: "…"
Once again, Tenten reappeared behind Shino's back, wielding this time a bō staff. She took a swipe at the back of Shino's legs, sweeping him off his feet, before twirling her staff and striking him in the ribs a few times with both ends of her weapon, as he fell.
But before Tenten could knock him out with a thrust of her wooden staff to the forehead, Shino rolled backwards and jumped to his feet with a rising handspring, a cloud of insects spilling out of his sleeves. Tenten didn't seem overly concerned, however— she gave her staff a jerk, revealing its hidden mechanism; her bō staff was actually a three-section staff!
Tenten crouched and spun like a tornado, picking up speed as she rose from the ground like a dragon, whipping her sectioned staff around her as she did so; precisely striking at Shino's knees, stomach and chin in quick succession!
Shino shuddered, before falling to his knees, and finally falling flat on his face… completely K.O.ed.
!!!
"The winner of the third match of the quarter-finals is… Tenten!" Genma shouted, his voice nearly drowned out by the audience's cheering and clapping.
Sakura and Ino clapped enthusiastically, though something in the back of Sakura's mind kept bugging her.
"That young girl's almost like the Yellow Flash reborn!" Sakura heard a man say excitedly behind her. "The Fourth was a true hero, you know! I caught a glimpse of him during the war, and…"
'The Flying Thunder God Jutsu, huh?' said Inner Sakura dreamily. 'We should be able to use it, in theory. I know we've got some talent with space-time Ninjutsu; otherwise, the original Sakura wouldn't have been able to summon Katsuyu. With the Minato's reflexes cheat, we should be able to use it better than anyone else… I wonder if we could get Kakashi-sensei to convince the Third to give it to us? I mean, the Fifth…'
The Flying Raijin was one of the Scroll of Secrets' ultimate techniques, but for some reason, the higher-ups had shelved it, determining that no one after the Fourth deserved to have it, which was a huge waste in Sakura's opinion. But for the foreseeable future, the Flying Thunder God Jutsu would continue accumulating dust in the Scroll of Secrets on the Hokage's shelf…
"Ooh, where's Sasuke?" said Ino worriedly, as she looked around her in a panic. "If he doesn't make it to his match in time, he'll be disqualified… you're not worried about him, Sakura?"
"He'll make it in time," said Sakura confidently.
In the original timeline, Sasuke's match was supposed to happen directly after the first, Naruto's. Under normal circumstances, he would have been disqualified for his tardiness, but the Fourth Kazekage (Orochimaru) had interceded in his favour, wanting to see him fight Gaara. But due to the butterfly effect, Sasuke's match was now the last. Knowing that Sasuke would show up after two matches' length of time, Sakura was confident that he would be arriving, aaaaaany day now…
"Wow, you trust in him that much, huh?" Ino teased Sakura. "Which reminds me, that Genjutsu of yours earlier was really lewd~ I was surprised to see that confident side of you, Billboard Cow— I mean, Brow. But, are you sure you shouldn't be keeping something like that for Sasuke-kun's eyes alone~?"
"Sh… shut up, Ino-Pig!" Sakura stammered, her cheeks turning as pink as her name. "It's not real, so it doesn't count, okay?"
In a bid to hide her blushing face from Ino, Sakura looked away from her— catching sight of Tenten coming up the stairs as she did so. Neji had left his seat to meet with her, and now, she was whispering something in his ear.
"Do you think they're together?" said Sakura out loud, with a hint of jealousy in her voice.
"You already have Sasuke," said Ino enviously, "and now you're after Neji too? Leave some handsome guys for the rest of us, Top-Heavy…"
Sakura narrowed her eyes, ignoring Ino's ribbing. Sakura knew everything there was to know about her waifu Tenten, but something seemed somehow off about her. Didn't she usually fight by raining weapons on her enemies from storage scrolls? Those puppets, and that strange fan that one of them had held…
'Could it be that she's a transmigrator just like us?' gasped Inner Sakura. 'Is she cheating…? That's not fair, I want a good System just like hers!'
System: "…"
All jokes aside, Sakura was beginning to wonder if this colder and more experienced Tenten didn't have something to do with her current situation. After all, she was supposed to be good at Fūinjutsu, right?
My name is Namikaze Minato, and I'm the fastest man alive. When I was a child, I saw my mother killed by something impossible. My father went to prison for her murder. Then, Jiraiya-sensei made ME the impossible. To the outside world, I'm just an ordinary Leaf Shinobi, but secretly I use my speed to fight crime and find others like me, and one day I'll find who killed my mother and get justice for my father. I am... the Yellow Flash.
"Is Uchiha Sasuke present?" the proctor Genma called out. "If you do not show up within the next minute, you will lose by default!"
The crowd was starting to get restless— of all the scheduled matches, the match between the geniuses of Konoha's two great Dōjutsu clans was the most anticipated, by a significant margin. It had been a while since they had last seen members of those two noble clans facing off, and they were eager to see how such a match would play out today.
It was an indisputable fact that the Hyūga was by far the Hidden Leaf's strongest clan, but to reach that vaunted position, the Senju and Uchiha clans had first needed to die off… Indeed, this was going to be a battle between the strongest clan of today versus the strongest clan in the Leaf's history— Hyūga versus Uchiha, Byakugan versus Sharingan.
It was said that to face an Uchiha alone was to court death— but the same could be said of entering melee range when facing a Hyūga. The Sharingan could see through all techniques, while the Hyūga could see through all forms of deception— they were both incredibly useful in the context of war, but the upcoming match wasn't a war, but a one-on-one fight, where there could only be one winner!
In the middle of the arena below, Hyūga Neji stood proudly with his arms crossed in front of him. Sakura could tell that there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that he would win his match— and Sakura had to admit that he was right to be this confident.
Unless he unleashed the second level of his cursed mark, Pre-Time Skip Sasuke did not have a single chance in hell of beating Neji, even if he unlocked his third Tomoe during the match… and even then, he would be having a hard time.
"Look!" cried Ino excitedly. "Down there!"
Not far from where Neji and Genma stood, a bunch of fallen leaves were beginning to spiral upwards, carried up into the blue sky by a whirlwind that had spontaneously formed. A few seconds later, the winds calmed down and the curtain of leaves fell, revealing two silhouettes of differing heights within the swirling winds…
"You're late, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs. "Don't you dare lose to that guy, because you're fighting me next, got it?"
"Heh," Sasuke called back to Naruto, an arrogant smirk drawing itself on his face. "Wouldn't have it any other way…!"
Seeing as the audience was getting impatient, Kakashi tapped on Sasuke's shoulder and whispered something into his ear, before flickering away. Sasuke's cocksure expression slowly replaced itself with a slightly more reserved one, and he then turned his back to Sakura's section of the audience, before walking over to Neji and the proctor.
"All set?" asked Genma in confirmation. "Yes? Then let the fourth match of the quarter-finals, Hyūga Neji versus Uchiha Sasuke… BEGIN!"
As soon as the match began, Sasuke immediately activated his Sharingan and leapt backwards, his fingers weaving hand signs rapidly.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu!"
Sasuke a spat out a volley of small globulets of flames, which began drifting towards Neji at a relatively slow pace. It was obvious to Sakura what Sasuke was trying to do: he was trying to avoid entering Neji's melee range at any cost…
Neji charged straight through the minefield of floating flames, batting any that got in his way with his chakra-covered hands. To his surprise, he found that catching up to Sasuke was actually proving to be a challenge; Sasuke's movements were faster than he remembered them being; in fact, they were rather reminiscent of Rock Lee's, his teammate…
…
"Yo," said Kakashi lazily, as he flickered to the stairs next to Sakura's seat without warning, giving her quite a start. "I heard you won your match against Guy's disciple? I'm impressed— I didn't think Asuma had it in him to train you that well."
Sakura craned her neck to look at Kakashi, who was in the middle of counting a fat stack of crisp, thousand-ryō notes…
"That's because he didn't," said Sakura in annoyance. "He taught me two Jutsu, and then he had to stop because of an existential crisis, or something." Looking at the money in Kakashi's hands, she then added suspiciously, "Kakashi-sensei, did you bet on the outcome of my match?"
"I would never," said Kakashi innocently. "Just a low-stakes wager between friends, that's all."
Sakura snorted derisively— but since Kakashi had obviously bet on her, she decided to forgive him, and she turned her attention back to the match.
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto blurted out, as he got up from his seat to chat with his teammates. "How did Sasuke get so fast? He wasn't like this before!"
…
Down below, Sasuke had lured Neji into the forested area of the arena, where at least he could use the trees as cover; to put something, anything, between him and the unstoppable menace that was Neji. So far, he was doing a pretty good job of staying out of his opponent's melee range, but his stamina was limited, so there was no telling how long he'd be able to continue to dodge at such a fast pace…
…
"Simple," Kakashi nonchalantly answered Naruto's question. "He recorded Lee's movements with his Sharingan, so I simply made him imitate his moves until he could perfectly replicate them."
Sakura scoffed— of course, Kakashi would pick a way to train Sasuke in such a way that he personally wouldn't have to actually put in any effort… No wonder Sasuke had ditched him for Orochimaru, who was a superior teacher in every conceivable way!
…
"Useless, useless, useless!" Neji shouted. "Did you really think I couldn't see you setting up these wire traps hidden in the trees? And all of these Explosive Tags, are those supposed to be the real trap? Is this really all you have, Uchiha?"
…
The corners of Kakashi's mouth lifted slightly under his mask; running fast wasn't the only thing he had taught Sasuke...
A deafening explosion rocked the forested area, as Sasuke's Explosive Tags all detonated simultaneously around Neji, who had still been in the middle of weaving his way through his wire traps like a contortionist.
The explosion raised a large cloud of smoke; nothing could be seen within it, save for a few flickering blue lights… and that's when Sakura heard what sounded like the chirping of a thousand birds.
"ROTATION!"
The dust cloud was suddenly sucked into the vortex that had formed due to Neji's Rotation Jutsu, revealing what had occurred under the cover of the smokescreen. On one end of the field, amidst the sea of destruction caused by Sasuke's Exploding Tags, stood Neji's rapidly spinning figure under a dome of swirling blue chakra; on the other end stood Sasuke, who was holding what seemed like a ball of lightning in his palm…
"YOU CAN'T HIT HIM HEAD-ON!" Sakura screamed at Sasuke in warning.
Though Sasuke gave no indication of having heard her, he suddenly veered to Neji's left in the middle of his mad dash towards his opponent. He was now running alongside his Neji's shield of chakra, accompanying the Rotation Jutsu's anticlockwise spin as fast as he could…
"CHIDORI!"
Like a flash of lightning, Sasuke's arm abruptly snaked out towards Neji, partially penetrating the rotating chakra shield— and yet, despite his great speed, he couldn't match the angular velocity of the Eight Trigrams Palms: Revolving Heaven. The instant his legs faltered, his arm was brutally ejected from the rotating chakra, and Sasuke was sent flying.
Neji finally stopped spinning, panting slightly— and then his eyes widened in shock, his hands immediately flying to his naked forehead. His forehead protector had been knocked off his head and had fallen to the ground a few metres away from him; a deep groove graven across the Leaf symbol embossed in the metal, where Sasuke's Chidori had scraped against it…
At first, Sakura failed to recognize what all the fuss was about— a great clamour had risen from the Hyūga's V.I.P. seating area— but a second later, she finally understood the gravity of the situation.
It wasn't about what was on his forehead, but rather what wasn't on it…
Hyūga Neji's forehead was as clear and as unblemished as the day he was born— somehow, the Manji of the Caged Bird Cursed Seal had vanished from his brow!
Creation is hard, cheer me up!
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