Chapter 14

When I squared up against Noel, the last thought on my mind was how to make the fight interesting, how to turn it into a spectacle of some sort. I had no need to waste my energy figuring that out; it was practically guaranteed. I was to face off against the strongest genin at the tournament. If the show wasn't good, then that would be my fault.

When the referee started the fight, Noel wasted no time in blurring across the arena, rushing at me to engage in taijutsu, as if I would ever allow that to happen. This time, I didn't hold back in my hand seal speed as I flipped through them, ending in a bird seal and focusing on my chakra. Multiple bullets of air screamed across the arena, slowing down his approach and forcing him to dodge and change directions suddenly. That did little to completely halt it as he came either way. The first punch was waved to the side as I backflipped to gain some space. As I landed on the ground, it was with my legs as much as it was with my hands as I slammed my palms down, pushing my chakra into the earth beneath us and forcing it to obey my will. Spikes shot out of the ground, forcing my opponent to also jump back to avoid being impaled by the attack. He kept dodging as two massive bullets of fire followed his escape. I was never more thankful for my nature than when I unleashed my ninjutsu. With the amount of chakra I'd pumped into those three jutsu just now, the average chunin would have been on his last legs.

Me? I was just getting started. Noel jumped into the water, but what did I care that a water release user was in the center of his element? Before this fight, I thought it would be a problem, but now I knew it didn't matter. He would never compare to me in a battle of raw ninjutsu. As I thought, my fingers flashed and moved through hand seals, ending on the bird seal again. I tried to snipe him in the water with the wind bullets I could create. I sent them screaming into the water blindly, but from the lack of blood pooling on the pond, I'd failed to make contact. When Noel surfaced and stood on the pond, he looked messy. His hair dripped down to his shoulders, upset from its previously slicked-back style. His outfit, in many ways the traditional Cloud nin outfit, was riddled with holes and tears that told me my attack had gotten closer than I'd previously thought. My gourd exploded into action, and the sand pooled next to me as I prepared my next move and his inevitable counter-attack. He would not remain on the defensive forever. Even I could see that as clear as day. He could not maintain a defense if I did not relent.

He spread his palms out at me, and the smile on his face looked bittersweet. Two disks of light formed around his palms, and I waited for the Storm Release. This was sure to be a fight to remember. "Storm Release: Laser Circus," he shouted for the heavens to hear, and suddenly, the world was bathed in light. The disks in his hands served as a launching base for an actual swarm of laser beams. My eyes failed to track how many there were, and a bit of Naruto trivia told me he'd be able to control where each single laser struck. This was worlds beyond what he'd shown off prior to this point. I guess I wasn't the only one holding back.

Since my sand was already at my feet, it was time to put Gaara's famed ultimate defense to the test. The sand spun as it woke and did my will. A dome of sand surrounded me, protecting me from all sides. I waited for the outcome as the lasers struck the sand and penetrated with the ease of a hot knife passing through butter. The lasers passed through me with similar ease.

XXXXXX

Well, fuck. I guess the answer to whether my sand could provide any protection from Noel's Storm Release was answered. I sighed as I focused on my chakra and exploded out of the ground, another clone forming from the sand around me and following my will. We jumped out in unison and spent a few seconds floating, staring right at the Cloud nin. At the apex of our flight, our seals completed, and we released our jutsu in unison. The clone channeled a good portion of its chakra into a massive Great Fireball, and I did the same with the Great Breakthrough that fanned the flames. The fireball, previously the size of an elephant, positively ballooned in size as it came in contact with the wind release attack. I'd never practiced that particular combo before, but we all knew it would work. I had underestimated how well, though.

Noel did not bother attempting to block the attack with his water release. Instead, he used his shunshin to escape from the vicinity instantly. That was probably the only thing that saved his life as the fire attack landed on the pond and surrounding ground before exploding. The wind from the explosion pushed both me and my clone backward, but I was able to keep us steady with some tendrils of sand. It was actually impressive how much damage that had managed to cause. When the dust settled, there was no pond. Much of that entire half of the arena had been devastated by the explosion.

I smiled at the result, and only my clone keeping an eye on things allowed me to dodge out of the way of a quickly moving laser that almost tore a hole through my skull. I saw through his eyes as Noel cursed to himself in a whisper before weaving hand seals from his position hidden in what little remained of the forest.

This time, when the lasers shot out, I was ready. The sand all around me rose to my will. Not just my will. Our will. Clone Gaara worked with me with frightening symmetry (it was almost like we were the same person) as we sent a tendril of sand spearing at each individual laser. I could never have hoped to track all of them on my own, but just half? That was easy. What was different about our approach this time? Each tendril was chock-full of my chakra, transformed into wind nature and shaped in front of each tendril like a spear tip. Just as I expected, they tore through the lasers, making it look easy as they did so. Noel was forced to shunshin from his position again as the sand tore that part of the forest apart as we searched for him and tried to end things. When he moved away from the attack, we did our best to keep track of him with our eyes, but at some point, we could no longer follow his movement. He was fast, and as I barely leaned away from a punch that would have cleaved my head from my shoulders, I added that he was strong to that assessment. Clone Gaara tried to get him from behind, but he simply was no longer there before he kicked right through my clone's impulsive guard, almost dispelling him. I scowled as I found my feet again and jumped right on him, with a kunai clutched in each hand. I ducked underneath a haymaker, using my height to force him into an uncomfortable taijutsu exchange, and keeping us close to prevent him from using his superior reach to his advantage.

Don't get me wrong, Noel Yatsuki was not my equal in taijutsu. He was far superior. The only thing allowing me to even keep track of his movement was the fact that my clone kept an eye on the entire battle to

prevent me from being caught off guard, and I was doing my best to shove as much chakra into my brain as safely possible to improve my perception. Another advantage of being a jinchuriki was that more often than not, I crossed the limit of 'safe'. Only my healing factor prevented the fight from ending on account of me falling to the ground brain-dead.

I jumped into his line of sight, attempting to shove one of my kunai into his left eye. He leaned backward to dodge, and I used the opportunity to stab down with my other kunai. The steel plates on his gauntlet screeched as he waved my kunai away with one of his hands. I avoided a standoff by flipping that same kunai into the air and spitting a blast of air that sent it sailing right for his head. As he dodged and retreated, I followed him, keen on preventing him from gathering his composure and making this fight any harder than it already was. Even on the backfoot, it was all I could do to ensure he remained there. A single slip-up, and I'd be either dead or lost. In spite of that, though, I was smiling. I was having fun for one of the first times since I woke up in this body. What I felt was not an emotion. It was something deeper, more primal. My body sang to be in combat, to lay everything on the line in every exchange as my opponent tried to kill me and I returned the favor.

Of course, all things were destined to end. Out of nowhere, Noel began to move even faster. I could see he loved to be pushed like this, as he slowly began to overwhelm me, and I went from having him on the ropes to being in that position. I narrowly escaped death from a sudden kick to the head by a shield made of sand that rose from the ground at my clone's direction. He took that as his cue to jump into the fight. Facing two of us, he held back a bit less, and he moved faster than either of us could react to. Only instincts trained from combat with Baki, who was similarly superior to us, allowed us to remain alive and intact as he turned his attention to us. As we fought, we silently strategized between ourselves on what to do next. That's why we were able to come up with the perfect plan in seconds.

As Noel spun into a roundhouse kick that was sailing straight at my head, Clone Gaara jumped right into the path and clutched on to that same leg before collapsing into sand. I took charge of the sand instantly, using my chakra to amplify its weight and prevent Noel from retreating as I swarmed him with sand, capturing him in a sand coffin.

"Surrender?" I asked, stretching a hand to control the sand while taking deep breaths as the tension began to leave my body. He just smiled at me placidly.

"Surrender?" he asked, repeating my question.

"Oh. I should be the one asking you, Gaara of the Desert," he said before his chakra suddenly began to skyrocket. A single explosion sent all the sand flying off of him, and similarly sent me flying off, only caught by a platform of sand. I searched for him through the dust, and what I found sent my heart dropping to share space with my stomach. I'd never seen that jutsu in this life, but after watching the anime, reading the manga, and also reading fanfiction for years, I'd recognize that jutsu anywhere. The jutsu that allowed the Third Raikage to tangle with the Eight Tails on equal footing. The jutsu that the Fourth Raikage used to survive multiple encounters with the world's most notorious killer of men, Minato Namikaze. The pinnacle of the lightning release. The Lightning Armor. It sent his hair that had flowed around his face spiking straight up, and I watched in a mixture of awe and dismay as he took his first steps in that glorious form.

XXXXXXX- THE FOURTH KAZEKAGE

"So, Konoha was the only one to bother sending actual genin to the tournament," the Hokage commented idly, seemingly making a casual observation, but the rest of us could hear the accusation in his tone. The Chunin exams were created by a treaty, a treaty that expressly forbade what we had done here. Furthermore, the treaty ignored the impossibility of proving the occurrence of the prohibited actions.

"Iwa came without any monsters like those," Ohnoki grunted, staring at both Gaara and the Yatsuki boy with hardened eyes. I could predict what was going through his mind. He was observing the future of the two other villages and found no examples in his own village that could match them. However, I wasn't surprised. Gaara and Yatsuki were clearly exceptional talents. The fact that both of them were competing in the same Chunin exams was statistically improbable, making this exam likely to be remembered for that reason alone. Nonetheless, neither of them would become a Kage. Gaara was a Jinchuriki, and Noel had been born into the wrong family. In Kumo's history, the Raikage had always come from the same family line as the first. The First and Second Raikage had been cousins, the Second was an uncle to the third, and the third was the father of the fourth. Kumo operated more like a monarchy than any of the other villages. Even Konoha, where every Kage had been a student or a student of a student of the previous Kage, was more egalitarian.

"Gaara is a genin. I can submit the necessary documents. I am unaware that it has become a crime to send exceptionally talented genin to the exams," I said, slipping into the defense I had expertly crafted. Nothing we did was illegal because Gaara truly was a genin. In fact, he had been one for more than a year. However, we all knew that the innocent had more to fear from the law than the guilty.

Ay only grunted and remained silent. He clearly had no interest in proclaiming his innocence as he watched the Yatsuki boy assess himself in the lightning armor. I was genuinely impressed by how well the boy had performed.

"The lightning armor is beyond what any of us expected to see here," I commented, doing my best to imitate the Hokage's casual and idle tone.

Ay grunted again, and the Tsuchikage decided to add his own input. "Indeed. Witnessing a genin wield the pinnacle of lightning release rubs me the wrong way. Are we to consider this a declaration of a successor, Kazekage-dono?" His comments were directed at Ay this time.

"Hmph. Don't waste my time with that. The boy is strong. He's good. I taught him the jutsu because I believed he would excel with it. It doesn't mean anything," Ay replied, revealing his inexperience in this field. We both became Kage in the same generation, but while I had to navigate the Wind Lord's court and all the perils it entailed to ensure Suna's security, Ay had everything handed to him. He had no idea how to maneuver in this political sphere, which was why he told such a terrible lie.

The Lightning Armor represented the pinnacle of hidden jutsu, only learned by those in line to become the Raikage. I wasn't aware of Kumo's inner politics, but I couldn't recall an instance where a shinobi outside the line of succession demonstrated mastery of the jutsu in any context. Ay was lying, and I wondered why he would tell such a terrible lie. Unless he was lying, but not about what we think he's lying about. Looking underneath the underneath was becoming exhausting. I turned my attention back to the battle as Gaara watched in amazement, allowing his opponent ample time to acclimate to his new form. Well, that was one aspect of his training that needed improvement. Noel moved, and I struggled to keep up with the sheer speed using my eyes alone.

XXXXXX- GAMER OF THE DESERT

When Noel crashed through my sand platform, all I could do was command the sand to wrap around him, slowing him down enough for me to dive off the platform. This time, when I caught him in a sand coffin, the sand burial swiftly followed. However, to my surprise, he jumped off the disintegrated platform seemingly unscathed.

As we both fell to the ground, I seized the opportunity as quickly as possible. In mid-air, there was no leverage or chance to exploit his speed. Multiple spears of sand shot out at him while I caught myself on another platform. In response, he unleashed a shot that caused the lightning surrounding him to scatter the sand spears. I blinked at the display. It was truly impressive. The moment he landed, he immediately launched himself towards me, but this time, I was prepared. Multiple shields of sand materialized between us as I dove off the platform, instantly catching myself on another one. It proved to be the right decision as he effortlessly crashed through all my shields and my previous platform, and I finished my seals just as he reached the peak of his jump.

"Wind Release; Sickle Weasel Technique," I whispered as I breathed out, unleashing an actual scythe made of wind that sliced through his chest, despite his attempt to dodge it in mid-air. I smiled as my theory was partially confirmed. He had easily withstood the sand burial, but the wind jutsu had effortlessly torn through his armor. As he fell backward from the impact, I held my breath, hoping it would be enough. However, as he flipped and landed on the ground with his feet, I realized I would need to do more to end this.

He met my gaze with a grim smile, ignoring the bleeding wound on his chest. Then, he raised a hand covered in lightning to the injury and cauterized it, all the while maintaining eye contact. The message was clear: "Look at what I'm willing to do to myself. Now imagine what I'd be willing to do to you." I couldn't deny that a part of me trembled at that prospect.

When the intensity of the lightning surrounding him increased, it didn't come as much of a surprise. Of course, he still had more tricks up his sleeve. This time, there was nothing between him shifting his stance and me shooting off my platform. The only sensation I felt was a jolt in my chest. I silently counted. Three. He had broken three of my ribs straight through the sand armor that always surrounded me. Without the armor, that attack would have caved in my chest. I took a breath, realizing I was still free-falling through the air. Was this what it felt like to be in shock?

I caught myself on another platform, quickly shaping it into a dome as I saw him preparing to move again. His punch crashed against the dome, sending me flying across the arena. At least the dome had held up against him this time. Now, I needed to figure out how to overcome this particular challenge. As he landed on the ground, multiple tendrils of sand lashed out at him, but he effortlessly evaded them. Drawing on more chakra, I split some of the sand around me to create a clone. It was my third in this battle. It spoke volumes about my dwindling chakra reserves and the drain of the sand clone jutsu, considering each iteration had cost me more chakra than all the other jutsu I had used in the tournament combined. My hands flew through the seals, and the Great Breakthrough jutsu forced him to abandon his plan of charging straight at me. The clone, now in control of the wind, molded the Great Breakthrough into a tornado that enveloped both of us on our platform. With our defense momentarily secured, we needed to devise a plan to defeat the lightning-wielding opponent waiting for us on the ground. The tornado couldn't last forever since it was essentially a repurposed Great Breakthrough jutsu, so its duration was limited. And then, I glanced to the left and barely caught sight of what I needed to strengthen the dome surrounding us. Noel had breached the hurricane to attack, and only the wind in our immediate vicinity had slowed him enough for me to react. However, even so, he cleaved through the dome and pierced my clone with his hand as he leaped in front of me. I trapped him in a sand coffin to impede his movement and jumped away, dispelling the tornado before it harmed me. As I landed on another platform and Noel landed on the ground, I noticed numerous cuts covering his body. It was evident that he hadn't emerged from the tornado unscathed. But why? It was clear that the jutsu couldn't have been maintained indefinitely.

The answer came when the lightning surrounding him momentarily flickered before swiftly returning. Chakra. He was running out of chakra. Maintaining the lightning armor must have been taxing, and the prolonged battle was stretching his endurance. The realization left a bitter taste in my mouth, but all I had to do to win was outlast him. There was no need to defeat the lightning armor when I could simply defeat the man within it. I swiftly weaved hand seals as my plan began to take shape. Wind release had proven effective against him, so I needed to utilize as much of it as possible to slow him down.

XXXXXXX- THE FOURTH KAZEKAGE

"Not completely ready for the jutsu, is he, Raikage-dono?" Ohnoki posed the rhetorical question, and Ay only grunted in response.

The Yatsuki boy was starting to weaken. His chakra was rapidly depleting. It would take an exceptional sensor to accurately assess a shinobi's chakra capacity from such a distance, and I certainly wasn't one, but it was evident to all of us. Noel Yatsuki was beginning to slow down. His lightning armor had deactivated twice already, only to be reignited through sheer stubbornness. Well, if there was one thing the future Raikage would share with the current one, it would be that determination.

Gaara did an outstanding job capitalizing on his opponent's predicament. He remained out of reach on his sand platforms, utilizing wide-area wind ninjutsu to discourage his opponent from closing the distance or, alternatively, punishing him if he dared to do so. It was impressive how effortlessly and powerfully the jutsu flowed from him. Hiruzen had already emitted a few "hmms," indicating that he was just as impressed as I was. Gaara would not only be the future of Suna but also the entire shinobi world. With him by Temari's side, I pitied those who would dare challenge Suna in the future. It's all for you, Karura. All for you.

When the Yatsuki boy finally collapsed, it happened without much fanfare. He assumed a stance to leap at Gaara once again when the lightning surrounding him suddenly extinguished and didn't come back. He fell to the ground, unconscious from chakra exhaustion, and the proctors wasted no time in declaring Gaara the victor. For the first time in years, a genuine smile crossed my face. Do you see me now, Karura? Do you see me?