Naruto: God of Shinobi

Chapter 54: Fruits of the Training

Hayate's hand came down.

Sakura moved before it finished falling.

The distance between them was gone in less than a breath. Her fist came up fast, and

Temari's eyes went wide as she snapped the fan shut and brought it around in a horizontal block.

The punch landed anyway.

Temari skidded backward, sandals carving two ragged lines through the dry earth. She looked down at the fan. The metal along the edge had caved in.

Sakura didn't stop to admire it. She was already closing again, leg sweeping low for Temari's knees.

Temari jumped clear. The fan snapped open, one moon showing on the paper, and she swung it hard.

Wind tore across the field, sharp enough to cut.

Sakura dropped flat. It passed a hand's width over her head. She rolled and came up already running, ducking behind the nearest tree before Temari could track her.

Up in the stands, nobody was talking.

Temari's eyes narrowed, reading the field, reading the girl. Sakura broke from cover with her hands already moving through signs, and slammed her palm flat against the ground.

A wall of packed earth rose in front of her, low and thick. Temari's next gust hit it dead center. The wall cracked down the middle. It held.

Sakura was already gone from behind it.

Temari spun, fan open to its second moon, and swung again. The blast of compressed air ripped through empty ground.

Three Sakuras broke from three different trees at once, converging from three angles.

Temari's arm swept wide. Two of them caught the edge of the wind and popped into smoke.

The third one didn't slow down. Her fist buried itself in Temari's stomach, and the air left her in one wet gasp.

Sakura pressed the advantage. Her elbow came down, Temari caught it on the fan, the impact denting the metal further. Sakura grabbed the rim and pulled. Temari held on with both hands.

A kick to the ribs broke her grip. Temari flew sideways, hit the dirt, and rolled back up onto her feet, breathing hard.

The crowd had gone from silent to loud, shouting things nobody could quite make out.

The fan sat on the ground between them. Sakura stepped over it. Her face gave nothing away. Her breathing was even.

She kicked it out of reach.

Temari's eyes narrowed. Nobody had ever taken that fan off her before.

Temari came in first this time, hands like claws, footwork tight and fast.

Sakura's forearm caught her wrist. The shock of it ran up to her shoulder, and she twisted through it anyway, elbow driving for Temari's ribs.

Temari caught the elbow on her palm. Her other hand shot for Sakura's face, nails out.

Sakura ducked under it, felt the nails pass through the ends of her short hair, and answered with a fist to the stomach that doubled Temari over.

Temari staggered back a step. Sakura followed, knee coming up, and Temari barely got her thigh in the way in time, wincing at the impact and resetting her footing.

They circled each other, breathing loud enough to hear over the crowd.

Temari's taijutsu was clean. Every motion trained into her by a village that expected results.

Sakura's had been beaten into her by someone else. By a boy who moved like water and hit like stone, who had turned her down flat and then, somehow, without ever meaning to, made her want to become someone worth looking at twice.

She attacked.

Fist to the shoulder. Foot to the knee. Elbow to the jaw.

Temari hit the arena wall and slid down it, and for a second the whole stadium forgot how to make noise.

Temari pushed herself back up anyway. Her lip had split open. One eye was starting to swell shut. She wiped blood off her chin with the back of her hand and looked at the girl in front of her differently than she had a minute ago.

Not scared of her. Not yet. But something close to it, dressed up as respect.

"Damn, I’m impressed girl," she said.

Sakura didn't answer. She was already moving again.

Temari brought her forearms up to block. The punch drove her back a full three steps. Sakura's heel found her ribs next, and the sound it made was wrong, wet and low, and Temari coughed blood onto the sand.

Another fist snapped her head back. More blood, in the air this time.

Nobody in the stands said a word. They'd come for the Hyuga prodigy. They'd come for the last Uchiha. Nobody had told them to expect this.

Temari stumbled, bleeding from her mouth and her nose now, one eye swollen shut, ribs cracked and grinding when she breathed.

Sakura didn't let up. Her hands ran through signs and slammed flat against the earth.

"Earth Style. Mudslide."

The ground opened under Temari's feet, mud and stone rising to swallow her ankles and hold. She strained against it and didn't move an inch.

Sakura walked toward her, knuckles split open, face unreadable, eyes gone flat and cold in a way that didn't look like her at all.

Temari looked up, trapped, beaten, and not giving an inch of the last thing she had left.

Sakura's fist rose.

Temari's hand shot out and closed around her ankle, and pulled.

Sakura's balance went out from under her. She hit the ground hard.

Temari was on top of her in the next second, knee driving into her stomach, fist coming down once, twice, and Sakura's head snapped back and blood sprayed across the dirt.

The crowd roared, alive again, hungry for whichever way this went now.

Sakura rolled clear and came up on her knees, blood running from her split lip, one eye already swelling, ribs screaming with every breath.

Temari had pulled herself free of the mud and was standing again, fan back in hand. Her lip was completely torn. Her eye had completely swollen shut. Her ribs were broken, Sakura had felt them go, but she was on her feet.

She looked down at Sakura, and whatever softness had been in her voice before was gone from her eyes now.

"Impressive," she said.

Sakura couldn't answer. There wasn't enough air left in her for it.

Temari opened the fan. One moon showed on the paper. Then two. She held there a moment, watching Sakura try to find her feet.

Then she opened it the rest of the way.

A third moon, pale against the black paper, caught the light.

Up in the stands, someone gasped, and then more of them did.

Sand lifted off the arena floor in a slow spiral. The air began to turn, gathering itself into something with edges.

Temari smiled through the blood on her teeth.

"Now," she said. "We finish this."

Next Time: Recognition from the Crowd --- And the victor is.