Obito-Sensei Chapter 20

Rivals

The day of the final exam arrived before Sakura knew it. She barely remembered waking up that morning; it was as though she were transported to the arena without control of her body. She met her teammates and her sensei there.

"Sakura." Obito waved his hands in front of her face. Naruto and Sasuke had already gone on ahead. "You okay?" He was fully kitted out, wearing his metal forearm guards and everything.

"No," she said frankly, and he laughed.

"Eat a big breakfast?"

"No."

"Looking forward to the fights?"

"No."

"Can you say anything else?"

"No."

Her sensei laughed again, and squeezed her shoulder. "That's fine. You're all going to meet up in the middle of the arena, alright?" They were standing in one of the halls that spiralled throughout the building, the light of the morning sun pouring in through a nearby exit. That door led to the arena proper. "The rules are going to get laid out there. You're the last fight of the day, so you'll have plenty of time to catch your breath, okay?"

"Okay." Sakura took a deep breath. She was going to fight. She'd already made up her mind. Now, it was just a waiting game. "Okay."

Obito smiled. "Trust yourself."

Sakura nodded, and walked out the door into the sun.

The arena was huge, more than a hundred meters from end to end, and was essentially a small ring of nature enclosed by concrete walls that towered over thirty meters high around it. There was a small creek running through one corner of it, and a copse of scraggly trees in the other: the rest was mostly flat, torn up grass. A perfect naturalistic circle. Above the concrete walls were the stands.

They were already completely filled to the brim with people of every size, color, and nationality. Sakura was completely overwhelmed by the size of the audience and the sound of its murmuring. There were thousands of them, and just their background noise was like a rushing river all around her. She scanned the countless faces in the crowd for familiar ones, and couldn't find any at a first pass. Her other classmates were up there, and her parents, but she couldn't find them in the sea of people. She kept walking, coming to the center of the arena.

The other competitors were already there, all except Kabuto. Four of them turned to catch her eye as she walked up: Naruto, Sasuke, Tenten, and Haku. They all smiled at her.

How weird was it, Sakura thought, that she was friends with four of the twelve finalists?

Gaara was there too. He didn't look at her. Sakura took her place on the other end of the line from him.

"Good of you to join us." The proctor for the match was Shikaku Nara, the same scarred man that had been there when the matchups were announced. "Eleven out of twelve is good enough for me, so we're gonna go over the rules now."

He pulled out a scrap of paper from his vest, and the murmuring in the arena intensified. "Like I told you all a month ago," he said, "this will not be a bracket tournament. Each of you will have a single match, and that match will determine your promotion." His eyes wandered over each of them, lingering on no-one. "Give your all."

He pointed at Naruto and Sasuke. "You two are first: your match is in ten minutes. Take that time to prepare." Then, to the rest of them. "You seven will be in the first observation area." His finger swept over the ninja from the Hidden Sand. "And you three, the second."

They were splitting them up. Because Gaara had come after Naruto before the tournament? Almost certainly. The older girl, Temari, bowed her head, but her teammates just stared ahead without a word.

"Go," Shikaku said, and they broke up into three groups. It was already happening? Sakura still didn't feel even close to ready. As her teammates turned to go, she walked after them.

"Sakura?" Sasuke turned towards her. "We're-"

"I know," she interrupted. "I just wanted to wish you guys luck." She managed a single dry chuckle. "Both of you, you know." She reached out, a little hesitant at first, and then pulled them both into a hug. Naruto made a high pitched noise, but Sasuke just grunted. When she pushed them back, they were both slightly blushing.

"Have fun, okay?" she said, and they grinned.

"Oh, we're gonna," Naruto said, and Sasuke nodded with a bit of a smirk. "Thanks, Sakura!"

Sakura jogged back to the group, and Tenten elbowed her. "You dork," she said as they entered the shadow of the arena. "Who do you think's gonna win?"

"I've got no idea," Sakura admitted. "They're both really strong, and they've known each other for so long. It could be either of them."

"It'll be Sasuke," Neji said, and Sakura looked over at him in surprise. She hadn't expected him to care. "He's the more determined."

"You are wrong, Neji!" Lee declared, and the Hyuuga let out an amused grunt. "It will be Naruto: he is the more youthful!"

"Louder, you mean," Tenten said with a smile.

"Sakura knows them the best." Haku spoke up, his voice soft, and the Leaf ninja glanced at him. "And she's unsure of the winner." The ninja from Rain smiled at a private joke. "It could be a tie."

"Haku, right?" Tenten asked. They started to climb the stairs to the observation room. It was a smaller room set below the main stands, closer to the arena and separated from the crowds. "You're my opponent."

"And I yours," Haku said, completely neutral.

"Any tips on how to beat you?" Tenten asked, and Sakura blinked at her boldness. Haku just laughed.

"Perhaps later," he said in good humor. They reached the room; it wasn't very large, maybe only thirty feet wide, with a couple of benches set near the side closest to the arena. There wasn't a window there, only a short railing that ran the length of the room. "For now, I'll just wish you good luck, Tenten of the Leaf."

"Ha!" Tenten smirked. "Fair enough."

"You're a cocky one," Suigetsu said with a bit of a sneer, and both of Tenten's teammates gave him unimpressed looks. "No one's ever beaten Haku. You won't be the first."

"There's always a first," Tenten said with a teasing tone, and the boy snorted.

Sakura looked back and forth between the two older ninja. She didn't want them to fight, not at all. Tenten fought with blades, and Haku with needles and most likely water jutsu. No matter how the match went, there would definitely be blood spilled.

"Sorry I'm late!" Kabuto hammered up the stairs behind them, and popped the tense attitude without effort. "Did I miss anything?"

"Nothing important," Haku said, glancing at Suigetsu. The boy huffed and calmed down, crossing his arms and sitting down on one of the benches. "The matches are going to start in a couple minutes."

"Phew!" the boy mimed wiping away some invisible sweat and sat down next to Suigetsu. "Ah, hello Sakura!" He inclined his head towards Tenten's team. "And you as well, ninja of the Leaf."

"Cutting it a little close, weren't you?" Tenten asked, and the boy rubbed the back of his sheepishly. "What were you up to?"

"I was grabbing something," Kabuto said, and as ever Sakura had no idea if he was telling the truth or not. The older boy never seemed outright suspicious, he just had a vague way of talking that made the back of Sakura's neck occasionally prickle. "It's not important, I promise." A slight smile slipped over his face. "I won't be fighting any of you anyway, so there's no need to worry."

"Ah!" Lee said, pointing upward. Sakura followed the line drawn by his finger to the stadium's highest point. It was the most important seat in the house. The Hokage was there, and he was what had drawn Lee's attention; he was standing up, preparing to speak. His wife was present as well, along with the Kazekage and one other, all seated in tall stone thrones.

There were a half dozen other shinobi that Sakura didn't recognize. She couldn't make out much about them from the distance, but the way they were positioned made her assume they were the Kage's bodyguards, two standing behind each great chair. That was what drew Sakura's attention to the third figure as the Hokage began speaking.

It was a tall woman with blue hair, nearly hidden under the distinctive hat of a Kage. She remained seated with the other Kage and Kushina, demure and graceful looking even in repose, as Minato Namikaze spoke.

"Welcome!" he declared, his booming voice carrying over the massive stadium with ease. "To the Hidden Leaf's Chunin Selection Exam!" He looked around the stadium, somehow making it look as though he was making eye contact with everyone. The Hokage just had that kind of impossible presence. "Today, we will be celebrating the skill of our dozen finalists with six unique matches! Please honor their achievements, and stay to watch to the end!"

It was overly formal and strange sounding, and Sakura realized with a new thrill of both horror and excitement that she would be the last match. She would be the climax that the Hokage had just implicitly promised.

She shivered.

The Hokage sat back down and shared a private joke with his wife, who laughed, inaudible from a distance. Sakura wondered what they were thinking as they watched their son start the final exam.

Naruto and Sasuke both appeared from either end of the arena, approaching the center as a chorus of cheers and clapping rose up around the stadium. Naruto waved and grinned, but Sasuke didn't make a move: he was totally focused on his teammate. His opponent, Sakura thought. For just a couple minutes, the world was going to flip upside down.

Shikaku was still waiting for them in the center, and he gave each of them a nod as they arrived, coming to a stop just ten feet apart.

"All matches will operate under the same rules," he said, projecting his voice loud enough that Sakura was sure even the highest seats would be able to hear him. "The battle will only end if one of you concedes defeat, is rendered unconscious, or killed." His eyes slipped back and forth between them. "If I believe the match has been decided, I will step in myself. Understand?"

Both of Sakura's teammates nodded, faces set in serious expressions, and she wondered when they had all started looking older. Sasuke hadn't always been that severe, surely. And Naruto's hair hadn't been that wild before. It had only been a couple months, but neither of them looked like kids anymore. They looked like shinobi.

Did people think the same thing about her?

"Begin!" Shikaku threw up his hand and leapt back, clear of both contestants, and Naruto and Sasuke…

Did nothing.

A mutter sprang up among the crowd, and Sakura leaned forward, clasping her hands beneath her knees.

"Lose their nerve?" Suigetsu muttered, and Neji grunted.

"No," he said, and as he did Naruto and Sasuke began walking towards each other with a slow deliberation. "They're not that sort."

Naruto and Sasuke met in the exact center of the arena, and Naruto grinned and raised one hand. The stadium went quiet, people straining to see what was happening. Sakura felt a little laugh escape her; he was making a Seal of Confrontation, two fingers raised straight up, like this was just another spar in the academy. Sasuke mirrored him with a smirk.

Then, they both dropped their hands, bringing them down to meet one another and wrapping their index and middle fingers around the others. Sakura tilted her head: the order of the seals was odd.

"What are they doing?" Haku asked, and Sakura looked over at him, the gesture suddenly clicking in her head.

"Those are the Seals of Confrontation and Reconciliation," she said, and Kabuto and Suigetsu both shifted a fraction of their attention to her as well. Tenten's team was focused on the field: Naruto and Sasuke had both turned and were creating some distance between themselves. "We use them before a fight, to indicate that a spar is starting, and after, to show we're still comrades."

"After, though," Tenten mused. "So if they're doing it now..."

Sakura's realization should have made her heart sink, but instead it woke a wild kind of excitement in her. She wanted to see this fight, she thought, even if it was strange and wrong. Maybe that was why some part of her was so curious. She leaned forward on her bench, fixated on the two boys.

"It's because," she said, "they don't think they'll be able to afterwards."

###

As soon as his students made both seals, Obito knew immediately that they were going to do something stupid.

"That's cute," Rin said, and he looked over at her. They'd both taken seats in one of the higher rows of stands, along with many of the other jonin-sensei. "They tell you what they're up to?"

"Not a thing," Obito said, and both his students turned to face each other once again, having put a couple dozen meters between them. "They're in love with surprises."

The battle started as suddenly as everyone had expected it to. Sasuke made the first move, drawing a brace of shuriken from his back, and Naruto darted sideways as his friend began throwing the stars with reckless abandon. The noise of the crowd swelled with excitement as the Hokage's son ducked, dodged, and weaved through a torrent of steel; Sasuke wasn't holding back, and he unleashed nearly a hundred shuriken in just a couple seconds.

Naruto dodged most of them, but he was immediately on the defensive. Rin sat back with a smirk.

"He's not letting up," she said, and Obito nodded in agreement. "Does he have any-?"

Naruto went through another somersault, and came up with a handful of pebbles from the arena. He shouted something and threw them in a loose spread, and Sasuke leapt backwards, eyes narrowing.

The rocks exploded only a couple feet in front of the Uchiha, throwing up an impressive cloud of dust, fire, and smoke, but barely singing Sasuke's eyebrows.

"He's got it," Obito said. He had spent all his time with Sakura during his team's month of training; he didn't have a clue what his other students might have up their sleeves. Naruto was taking advantage of the distraction, charging straight in through the smoke; Sasuke couldn't see him coming, even with the Sharingan.

Bad idea. Sasuke had always been superior to him in taijutsu. Obito frowned, wondering what his student was thinking. Just as he'd thought, the moment Naruto cleared the smoke with a flying kick, Sasuke detected him. He ducked the blow and struck upwards, lightning fast, wrapping his arms around Naruto's leg like a constricting snake. Naruto didn't have time to react before he was violently thrown over Sasuke's shoulder, slamming into the ground with an audible thump.

Rin let out a little laugh and winced, and Naruto rolled away, Sasuke pursuing him. The Uchiha leveled a series of kicks at his opponent, but Naruto rolled out of the way of every one of them, the ground cratering where his head had been just moments before. The fourth time he rolled, Obito caught a glimpse of the smile on his face.

The ground under Sasuke detonated with an enormous KRUMP, and a cheer went up throughout the audience at the explosion. Most of them weren't ninja, Obito thought. They couldn't see, at least not right away, that Sasuke had leapt clear of the blast at the last second. The jutsu formula Naruto had laid down in the dirt was clear as day to the Sharingan, after all.

They were both a lot faster. Even if they hadn't been training for a life or death struggle, his students had obviously taken the prospect of the match seriously.

Fifteen meters straight up, Sasuke was running through the handsigns for a Grand Fireball. As the audience took notice of him and another roar of approval went up, he pulled back, taking a deep breath, and spat a ball of fire many times his size down at Naruto directly below him.

Naruto didn't run, which he probably should have. Instead, he took four kunai out, two in each hand, and focused, his chakra covering them in an explosive spiral. He really loved that jutsu, Obito thought. But Naruto had always been attracted to flashy things, and instant explosive tags were definitely that.

Naruto hurled all four kunai into the heart of the fireball when it had crossed half the distance between him and Sasuke, and the whole thing exploded with such violence and fury that for a moment there was a small second sun birthed in the heart of the arena. Obito shielded his eyes, unwilling to look away as Sasuke plummeted into the inferno. As the blast cleared, it became clear that some of his clothes had caught fire; the same went for Naruto. Neither of them seemed to notice: they were absolutely fixated on each other, preparing for the next clash. The audience was going mad at the sound and spectacle.

Naruto put together his hands in a simple seal, and Obito blinked.

'No way,' he thought. 'They wouldn't have been dumb enough to teach him that.'

There was a burst of smoke, and Sasuke was suddenly falling into ten Naruto's instead of one.

Shadow clones? Seriously?

"Shadow Clones?" Rin looked over at him with a wry glance. "Seriously?"

Obito laughed. "As if he wasn't enough trouble on his own," he said, not sure how serious the comment was. Naruto had always had way more chakra than was normal for a kid his age, probably thanks to his parents. He wasn't like another genin, who might accidentally knock themselves out from splitting their chakra too enthusiastically.

But still...

Sasuke landed, and to Obito's surprise was not immediately dogpiled. Naruto and his clones circled him, keeping their distance, and Sasuke looked around, obviously unsure of how to proceed.

He muttered something under his breath, his Sharingan whirling more and more violently, and Obito read his lips from a hundred meters away.

"This is gonna suck."

He charged at the nearest clone, and all of the Naruto's responded at once: the clone fell back, baiting Sasuke farther in, and its compatriots surrounded the Uchiha and threw attacks from every angle.

Sasuke was good. Great, even, when it came to hand-to-hand combat. If he and Naruto sparred with just their fists, Sasuke would win almost every time, even without his Sharingan.

But, Obito noted with an amused grunt, it didn't matter how good you were if eight guys were trying to pound your face in from every direction. At that point, you needed something else. It sparked a distant memory in him, and his fingers ached.

Sasuke took more than a dozen blows, and managed to stay on his feet, fighting back with wild swings and acrobatic kicks. One of the clones popped in a burst of smoke, and Naruto fell back once more, letting Sasuke catch his breath.

"Good time to give up!" he shouted, and each of the clones drew a kunai, explosive formulas whirling over them. Sasuke spat, and Naruto laughed.

"Your choice!" he said, and all the clones threw their knives at once in a brutal crossfire.

Too cocky. Sasuke counterattacked, leaping into a spinning kick and sending four of the nine kunai back at their throwers. The knives exploded in unison. The blasts below him picked Sasuke up and threw him like a ragdoll, spinning through the air and leaving a whorl of blood and burned hair behind him: the ones he'd returned destroyed another five clones, two of them going up at once as they desperately scrambled away from the returned knife.

Sasuke had already figured out the weakness of the detonation jutsu, Obito thought: Naruto couldn't control the timer he set after they left his hand, not unless he picked them up again. Once they were out, they were anyone's weapon, not just his. He was impressed, and even more so when Sasuke landed on his feet, stumbling backwards and patting out some of the fires on his back. That had been a nasty hit, but the boy was still ready to fight.

"Try again," Sasuke grunted, and Naruto frowned. He put his hands together again.

More clones appeared: fifteen this time, joining the surviving four and putting twenty Naruto's on the field. They charged as one, trying to overwhelm Sasuke with sheer numbers. The Uchiha retreated, producing more shuriken. Steel stars flashed out, and three clones disappeared in a puff of smoke. Still, the others poured in, and Sasuke was suddenly in a desperate fight against overwhelming numbers once more.

But this time, he wasn't immediately pushed back or buried in bodies. Obito leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.

Five, fifteen, thirty seconds, and Sasuke was still standing and fighting, throwing himself at Naruto with abandon and taking more hits every second. But he was doing damage: one clone went down, and then another.

"What's up?" Rin asked, leaning forward with him. "He's putting up a hell of a fight, huh?"

"It's not that," Obito muttered. Sasuke wasn't getting faster. If anything, he was slowing down. His movements were getting more and more deliberate, not a single action wasted. He slid between clones, redirecting attacks and slipping around others, and only striking out when he could land a single solid blow. Two more clones disappeared.

Naruto was smiling like a madman, and Sasuke was doing the same. They were both having the time of their life, Obito thought, but they weren't holding back. So why, then, could Sasuke be holding his ground?

As Sasuke spun and fought and bled, Obito focused more and more intensely on him. He closed one eye, and his Mangekyo spooled out in the other, the world gaining just a little more invisible clarity.

Sasuke's chakra was surging, practically exploding inside him. He turned towards Obito, knocking another Naruto into next week with a picture perfect haymaker, and Obito blinked in shock.

Sasuke's eyes were changing. The Sharingan was rotating so quickly that to ordinary eyes the tomoe would appear as one perfect black ring, but even over the enormous distance Obito could perceive the truth.

The two tomoe were splitting off, black pigmentation being left behind in the ring and lingering in the crimson pool of the eye. They coalesced, coming together with an inevitable gravity.

The next time Obito saw Sasuke's eyes, his third tomoe had fully formed.

"What?" Rin asked, and Obito realized he had been completely silent, enraptured by the transformation. He sat back with a sudden breath, and his teammate gave him a funny look.

"Sasuke just evolved his third tomoe," he muttered, and Rin arched an eyebrow.

"Just now?" she asked, looking back at the fight as another three Naruto's disappeared. Sasuke, impossibly, was winning. Twenty against one, and he'd brought the odds down to an equally impossible sounding fifteen to one… and he was still winning. "I thought… the way you got yours…"

"He's not afraid for his life," Obito said. His Mangekyo receded, and he crossed his arms. "He's just… enjoying himself."

"Is that how that goes?" Rin asked. "Have you ever heard of that happening?"

Obito shook his head, and Rin pursed her lips. "You guys barely know more about those eyes than the rest of us, don't you."

He snorted. It wasn't something any Uchiha would say out loud, but Rin was right. Even to its own clan, the Sharingan was a mystery in many ways. Obito had always been told it evolved in life or death situations, and that his Mangekyo had come from an enormous sorrow. That had lined up with his experiences, with Shisui's, and even with Itachi's.

And yet here, now, Sasuke had just brought his Sharingan to the highest level it would hopefully ever go, and all it had taken was a thrilling fight with his best friend.

While Obito wondered what that meant, Sasuke finished off the last of Naruto's clones, and the Hokage's son retreated once more. Sasuke limped after him. They were both tapped out, Obito thought. Sasuke had taken dozens of hits, and ugly bruises were forming all over his body; one of his eyes was covered in blood, leaking from a cut on his forehead. Naruto was bleeding from a couple shallow scratches and had one impressive burn on his cheek, but otherwise looked much better off than Sasuke.

But that wasn't the case, Obito was sure. The blond had produced dozens of large explosive formulas divided his chakra twenty times over. He was breathing heavily, and his feet weren't steady under him. He didn't have infinite energy, no matter how he acted.

Sasuke threw another shuriken, a perfunctory attack, and Naruto smacked it out of the air with the back of his hand and a laugh.

"C'mon!" he said, panting and resting his hands on his knees. "You gotta work for it!"

He leapt back, once, twice, and settled on the other side of the arena, crouching down and watching Sasuke. The Uchiha stopped, and Obito could see he was just as tired as Naruto. The euphoria of his Sharingan's evolution had probably worn off by now, and the reality of his many cuts, bruises, burns, and sprains was setting in. Even if he'd won, he had just fought twenty of Naruto at once.

At this rate, the both of them were going to fall over. The fight had barely been four minutes, and they'd poured their all in from the very beginning. The crowd was going crazy, unable to believe that Sasuke had fought his way out of the press of clones.

"You're right," Sasuke said, settling to one knee. He grinned. "Your choice, Naruto."

He held out both hands, face scrunching up in concentration, and Rin sucked in a breath.

"They can't be that stupid," she said, and as Sasuke clenched his hand into a claw a blue glow sprung up in it, gradually growing in size and violence. Slowly and surely, the Rasengan took shape, its azure light reflected in Sasuke's crimson eyes.

Naruto watched, and Obito watched him. After a second, the boy grinned and stuck out his own hand as well. His Rasengan grew much faster than Sasuke's: he obviously had more practice. After a second, both boys were holding a spinning ball of violent chakra the size of their head in their hands: Naruto in his right, and Sasuke's in his left.

They charged.

"They're that stupid," he confirmed, and the crowd roared in approval.

Both the boys were moving with such speed that Obito was sure the ordinary people in the crowd would only see the glow of the Rasengan, two blue streaks drawing an inexorable line towards an explosive terminus. Dust and grass was kicked up in a great wake, Naruto and Sasuke throwing themselves forward at an incredible pace. It was just a heartbeat before they collided.

Obito had never seen two Rasengan strike each other. When his sensei had invented the jutsu, he probably hadn't conceived of it. It wasn't just a physical collision: the Rasengan were spinning in opposite directions from each other, and when they struck, there was a deafening moment of tension. The violent spheres of chakra ground against one another, throwing out a high-pitched keening sound that blasted through everyone in the arena. Obito felt the vibration in his mouth, like a dentist's drill.

Naruto pushed forward, gritting his teeth, and Sasuke pushed back, both simply trying to overpower the other. The Rasengans followed, squishing into each other, deforming, moving from sphere to oval…

And then, they detonated.

The blast was loud and bright, even more so than any of the explosions that had rocked the arena. Both of the jutsu exploded in a rush of chakra and wind, and both of the boys were sent flying backwards. There was a sonic boom, and an exclamation in the crowd following it. Naruto and Sasuke spun like pinwheels, throwing endless somersaults through the air, and both struck the opposite walls of the arena at the same time with a spectacular THUD.

Obito winced, and both his students slumped bonelessly to the ground. They'd be back up for more, he was sure. They were just that stupid and stubborn. Neither of them would be able to condone just lying there.

The crowd waited five seconds, then ten. There wasn't a sound; neither of the ninja moved.

Fifteen seconds. Shikaku walked over to Naruto and bent down, taking his pulse. The blond boy didn't stir. The proctor flickered over to the other side of the arena, almost out of Obito's line of sight, and did the same to Sasuke. He was met with the same reaction.

Obito shook his head, not sure if he should laugh or groan. Rin gave him a disbelieving look. Both of his students were completely out cold.

Shikaku stood up, his hands on his hips, and looked up at the Kage box high in the stands. He shrugged.

"By mutual knockout," he announced, "the match is a tie."

The stadium exploded into noise: protests, cheers, laughter, even some angry yelling. Obito just sat back as Asuma, Rin, and several other jonin heckled him, his face in his hands.

But he was smiling behind them.