Naruto : Chapter 81

"Interesting strategy of your student there, Hokage Sama." Orochimaru said in his disguise.

"Indeed, and to have it work against a Nara by using his preconceptions is really incredible. She will definitely get her promotion." Kakashi said eye-smiling.

"I agree. She not only made a clone using the cover of poisonous mist, she must also have used the underground fish projection jutsu to travel through the earth. All within a few seconds while also managing to put a genjutsu over herself to hide her presence until it was too late." The Sandaime said.

The other two nodded impressed.

"Now only four are left. I'm somewhat hoping that Gaara gets to fight Sasuke Uchiha. Nothing against the other two candidates, but young Sasuke's clan's reputation carries far and people in Suna are curious how he would fare against our strongest genin." Orochimaru said.

"Well, Sasuke is definitely one of the most talented genin I have seen in my career as Hokage, but I think Naruto can at least give him a run for his money." The Sandaime said.

"We will know soon. Either way the match ups are going to be known in a few seconds." Kakashi said seeing that the board was shuffling the names again.

Of course he knew that Sasuke would fight Hinata next. It was rigged that way as neither Naruto's nor Gaara's name was available to be chosen. Then the board stopped showing the two names.

Down in the arena Hayate was calling Hinata and Sasuke down.

...

Hinata and Sasuke observed each other, both having their eyes activated. This was a fight that was a matter of pride for both of them. Uchiha versus Hyuga. Sharingan versus byakugan. Hayate had given the starting signal already, but both were looking for an opening.

Hinata knew how strong Sasuke was and Sasuke knew that getting hit by Hinata was fatal. Then they both flew threw a sequence of handseals.

"Fire style: Great Fireball." Sasuke called out and shot a big ball of fire at Hinata.

"Water style: Water bullet." Hinata countered.

The attacks hit in the middle and produced steam, which covered that part of the arena. The spectators only heard some fighting noises, but they couldn't see a thing through the steam. Finally the steam cleared and both fighters looked a bit worse.

Sasuke had trouble with his left arm and Hinata had some visible bruises on her right arm. Her sleeve had been torn off somehow and therefore it showed.

Sasuke then channelled lightning chakra into a number of shuriken and threw them at Hinata who slid into a stance nobody had seen before.

"Eight trigrams: Protection of the sixty four hands." Hinata called out and started shooting chakra beams from her hands and deflecting and cutting apart the shuriken that Sasuke had thrown at her.

...

Hiashi Hyuga looked very pleased at how this fight was going. While he didn't truly believe that Hinata was good enough to defeat the Uchiha boy, she was not giving up like she had done before and she was showing off the power of the Hyuga clan.

That jutsu was the one she had worked on with the children of the clan and to see it finished and used in a fight that was as important as this one was good to see. The elders would have to back off from their constant criticism and pressuring him into deciding on the heir.

He could continue stalling for now. And he knew that the worst problem, Elder Hiroshi, would not live much longer. He was already ill and it was only a question of time until he died.

Without him demanding that one of Hiashi's daughters being put into the branch family he could find a solution that prevented that either Hinata or Hanabi ended like Hizashi had. Hating his sibling and resenting the main family.

It was bad enough that Neji hated them so much. If only he could tell him the truth, but Neji probably wouldn't listen before he had got a major wakeup call from somebody.

...

Hinata and Sasuke watched each other again. They needed to find a way to overcome the other's defence. Then Sasuke drew his sword and ran towards Hinata.

She used the gentle fist style to deflect the blade away from her and even managed to hit a tenketsu on the side of Sasuke's upper left thigh. Sasuke jumped back on the power of his right leg, but Hinata now pressed forward.

Sasuke knew he needed to prevent her from attacking in full force. So he used something nobody had seen so far. He started making handseals with his right hand while holding his sword with his left, which while slightly handicapped, worked well enough for this.

"Lightning style: electro web." Sasuke called out and in front of him a net made of electricity appeared.

...

"One handed seals? That's really impressive." Orochimaru exclaimed.

He was drooling on the inside about the potential having that body would offer him. The sharingan and the knowledge to use one-handed seals.

"It seems his training over the last month really paid off. He hadn't mastered this trick when the second round ended." Kakashi stated very pleased.

Sasuke had got the idea of using one handed seals from Naruto who had told them about how Haku had used them in the ambush on the way to Wave Country.

As Sasuke could see the use of having one hand free to wield a weapon freely in a fight, he had worked hard on working out which seal would be needed to use his normal jutsus with one-handed seals. It had taken him months to work everything out, but now he seemed to be secure enough in his skill to use it in a real fight.

"Your students really show their skill in these finals, Godaime Sama." The Sandaime said.

"Thank you, I'm immensely proud of all of them." Kakashi replied.

...

Hinata didn't have time to dodge the web, so she tried taking away some of its power. She threw a volley of shuriken into it, hoping that the metal would trigger some kind of discharge.

Sadly it didn't really work like that. Instead the web exploded to her side and she was blown away a few metres. She scrambled back to her feet only to be confronted with Sasuke going into a strong taijutsu assault, which she only managed to partially block.

She needed her full concentration to use the gentle fist properly and with her current state of burns on several places of her body that wasn't the case. She needed to find a way to turn the battle around, but she couldn't think of one.

The problem was that the sharingan could see through genjutsu easily. So using one of them was just wasting chakra. Well, a ninjutsu should buy her some time.

"Water style: water whip." She called out and crated a two metres long whip which she used to keep Sasuke at a distance.

The jutsu wasn't perfected yet, but it was good enough to help her out of a tight spot for a moment. Sadly she hadn't counted on Sasuke finding a counter very quickly after his initial jump backwards.

He let her hit his left arm with the whip and then channelled lightning chakra into his arm and through her whip.

She was too slow to let the jutsu falter to avoid getting shocked and therefore had her nerves fried by the electricity. She tried standing up, but her muscles refused listening to her commands anymore. Then Sasuke stood in front of her, holding his sword to her throat.

"I win." He stated simply.

She couldn't deny that. She would need to regain control of her body for a few minutes before she could continue fighting and if this was an enemy she would have been dead. But she had performed well and much better than ever before. She had landed a few good hits and she hadn't given up. She could be proud of that.

Hayate landed next to them.

"Winner by submission, Sasuke Uchiha." Hayate announced and the audience cheered for this great battle.

...

"A good fight. Both showed a good amount of skill and that they could keep their head in battle." The Sandaime commented.

"Yes, but the Hyuga girl made a critical mistake in overlooking that her water whip could be used against her." Orochimaru pointed out.

"True, but I think she didn't expect that Sasuke had mastered lightning manipulation fully. I guess she expected him to need at least a few handseals to use the whip against her. In that case she could have succeeded with her tactic." Kakashi spoke up.

"We will have to consider her for promotion. She showed two good fights and only misinformation led to her defeat."

The Sandaime nodded agreeing with that.

"I guess then it's time for one of the most interesting fights now. The sons of the Yondaime Kages of their respective villages." Orochimaru said, hoping that Gaara would take Naruto out.

"Indeed. I can promise that Naruto will give his all. He wants to prove that he can one day surpass his father." Kakashi said.

"Gaara will do all he can to take the victory." Orochimaru stated sure of this.

Gaara would probably see Naruto as a worthy challenge to satisfy the demon inside of him. He didn't get blood in his first fight against the Akimichi boy.

He was in need of some. And once Gaara had the upper hand and killed Namikaze's brat he would give the signal to start the invasion. Konoha would fall today.

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