51 Intermission: Misery
Today was the day that Lee has his surgery done. The whole morning passed until afternoon came, the medical team lead by Tsunade herself finally out of the surgery room.
"OI, GUY!! COME HERE AND ACCOMPANY THAT PUPIL OF YOURS!"
The nervous Guy snapped out of his stupor and bowed to Tsunade with his smile stretched from ear to ear. "YES, TSUNADE-SAMA!"
As the evening came, all of the Konoha 12 except Lee himself came to the hospital. They brought various kinds of flowers and fruits to congratulate Lee on his successful surgery.
"Thank you, everyone! It won't be long for me to recover!"
Everyone on site was relieved hearing Lee's words, especially Sakura. She was cried silently as she was happy that Lee finally full of hope again. She was full of gratitude toward Tsunade, and she having a thought to seriously learn medical knowledge so that one day she'll be able to save people and gave them the hope to live their life. 'I was told that she is Tsunade-sama, one of the three sennin and the best-known medical-nin in the world.'
She finalized her thought and firmed her resolve to shamelessly beg Tsunade to accept her as her student. 'If I want to learn, I will only learn from the best!"
"Get well soon, so I can take my revenge to kick your butt." Sasuke finally showed his presence and talked to Lee, though he sounds like an arrogant prick toward the end.
"Thank you, Sasuke-Kun! I won't lose!" Lee beamed as he gave Sasuke a thumb up.
"Hn, you'll lose," Sasuke smirked and turned his face away. He crossed his arms and leaned on the wall.
"Haha, bushy-brow. When you laid here in the hospital, I got stronger and learned a new technique, it's called [Rasengan]! I won't lose to you either!" Naruto grinned, he firmly believed that he got stronger.
On the side, Sasuke squinted his eyes as he thought. 'A new technique? I wonder which one is stronger, my [Chidori], or his new technique?' A while later, Sasuke snorted. 'Definitely mine.'
"Speaking of a new technique, me and Akamaru also learned a few new tricks. I can't wait to have a spar with all of you! Especially you, I won't lose this time!" Kiba said as he pointed Chouji, as Kiba said that, everyone remembered the thing that transpired when the Chunin exam was held. No one was able to forget the attack unleashed by Chouji that day, even Lee who was inside the evacuation site shivered when he saw the sky turned red at that time.
Meanwhile, the culprit was sneakily eating the fruit that everyone brought as Kiba suddenly pointed to him and make everyone's attention turned toward him. 'Damn...'
"I-I can explain..." Chouji was embarrassed as he was caught red-handed, meanwhile, Lee's lips were twitched seeing his friend ate almost all of his fruit even before he touched them. But the awkwardness quickly solved when the hot-blooded Kiba challenged Chouji into a spar.
---
They all then went into the training ground including Lee as he, fortunately, was allowed to roam around as long as he did not exercise his body before he fully healed. Moreover, Lee now got Sakura to pester him when he was feeling giddy to exercise.
On the arena inside the training ground, Kiba stood in front of Chouji who was eating yakitori. They were going to have a friendly spar, seeing Chouji was still eating, Kiba did not lose his temper. He was already used to Chouji's antic all the way back from their childhood as they used to have a spar often -with Kiba mainly getting his ass kicked- as a kid.
"This time you're going down!"
"We'll see about that..."
The atmosphere between them getting tense as they stared at each other, Akamaru crouched and ready to leap any second.
"[Tsūga]!" [1] As impatient as he was, Kiba started the spar with his first attack. Kiba spun and moves in Chouji's direction at high speeds and delivers a drill body slam. As Kiba rushed at a straight line, Chouji casually dodged with a slight jump to the side.
But then, Akamaru already transformed into Kiba using [Jujin Henge] [2] and swiped his claw to rip Chouji apart. In turn, Chouji swiftly dodged by a hairbreadth then grab Akamaru's hand before he slammed him to the ground.
As Chouji was tangled with Akamaru, Kiba already rushed back to attack Chouji. Kiba brandished his claw and coated his entire hand with earth Chakra. His hand moved swiftly to form several hand-seals before he slammed his hand to the ground.
"[Doton: Iwadatami no Jutsu]!" [3]
Slabs of Tatami-like rock flipped on the ground and launched themselves toward their target's -Chouji- direction."[Shikyaku no Jutsu]!" [4], Kiba crouched like a beast then propelled himself before he swiped both of his claws to follow his previous attack.
Chouji smirked, he lifted the transformed Akamaru to shield himself from the rock slabs.
*Bam* *Bam* *Bam*
Akamaru was hit by Kiba's attack and transformed back into his original form as he whimpered away when Chouji threw him. Seeing Kiba swiped his claws to him, Chouji parried both of Kiba's claws in succession with his left hand while his right hand clenched on his waist.
"[Hiken]!" [5]
Chouji swung his fist in a linear motion, fire enveloped his entire right arm before they were shot. From his training, Chouji's fire nature transformation mastery was advanced by leaps and bounds. He even was able to execute more complicate fire Jutsus without any hand-seal and with more precision and control.
Kiba who was in motion to attack Chouji was astonished, he hurriedly tried to move out of the attack trajectory. Alas, Kiba was still caught in the blast and was launched out of the arena. In a desperate attempt, Kiba used another technique.
"[Doton: Sando no Jutsu]!" [6] Two enormous rock formations rose from the ground that closes in on Chouji from the opposing side in an attempt to squash him.
Seeing two boulders close in, Chouji cupped both of his fists and crossed in front of his chest as he regulates his chakra. "HA!" With a shout, he slammed his fists onto the boulders and crushed them to pieces.
"My win..." Chouji smiled as he posed a v-sign with his hand. Then he glanced down seeing his half-eaten Toriyaki laid on the ground, "But you two sure have improved, keep working hard!"
"Woof!" "You're right Akamaru, We'll win next time!"
Kiba grinned hearing Chouji's praise, it could be said that Chouji was seldom praised him after their spar. And receiving a bit of his acknowledgment made Kiba pleasantly satisfied and swore to train even harder.
"That's awesome!!" Naruto excitedly said while he giddily jumped into the arena, "Fight me next!"
Without waiting for any confirmation, Naruto made a hand-seal. "[Kagebunshin No Jutsu]!" a few shadow clones appeared with a poof of smokes. One of them stayed behind with the original while the rest of Naruto's shadow clones rushed to Chouji.
While Chouji casually dodged and countered Naruto's clones attack, he pondered. 'How does he bear the pain when this many shadow clones are dead? Won't he go insane?'
"Watch my new Jutsu!" Naruto shouted, his shadow clones moved his hand on top of the original Naruto then a swirling ball of chakra taking shape on his left hand. "[RASENGAN]!"
Seeing the approaching attack, Chouji calmly responded. "That technique indeed will be dangerous..." Chouji's right hand moved and parried Naruto's left hand with an inward motion. "...But that only if that technique is hit. You're too slow Naruto!"
Naruto stumbled as his attack only hit the air, his momentum was too great for him to immediately stopped. On the other hand, Chouji turned his body to face Naruto's back and his hand formed a Tiger hand-seal.
"Take this, [A thousand years of pain]!" With no hesitation, Chouji launched his technique which makes the onlookers felt shivers and automatically felt a twitch on their butt.
---
On this day, the peaceful village of Konoha was suddenly startled by a primal roar that indicated extreme pain. Today, one of the Konoha Genin was destined to wallow in misery as his bottom was marked deeply that it's etched in his mind for a long time.
"AAAAAAAAAA!!!"
---
[1] Passing Fang
[2] Human Beast Transformation
[3] Earth Release: Rock-Tatami Technique
[4] Four Legs Technique
[5] Fire Fist
[6] Earth Release: Sandwich Technique
