Chapter 83: The Days Leading Up.

Host: Rock Lee

Age: 16

Rank: Special Jonin

Skills: Taijutsu A (49,790/1,000,000), Ninjutsu D (240/1,000), Genjutsu D (180/1,000), Shurikenjutsu C (5,470/10,000), Chakra Control B (48,522/100,000), Nunchaku B (24,930/100,000), Eight Gates B (48,290/100,000), Bojutsu B (310/100,000), Chain Mastery B (0/100,000), Tonfa Mastery C (2,900/10,000), Muscle Mimicry B (4,200/100,000), Teaching B (50,660/100,000), Leadership B (12,776/100,000), Drunken Fist B (10,651/100,000), Inspire B (3,570/100,000), Water Style C (6,070/10,000), Lightning Style D (365/1,000), Fire Style D (111/1,000), Massage D (26/1,000), Spiritual Resistance D (5/1,000)

Unique Skills: Body Supremacy Jutsu, Chakra Enhanced Strength, Strengthened Chakra Network, Regeneration Ability, Increased Chakra Reserves

Equipment: Chakra-Metal Customized Weights, Might Suit, Shinobi Tools, flask of special medicine, Chakra-Metal Tonfas

Months had passed and Konoha changed.

It started with the missions. The assignment desk that used to have genin teams waiting in line for D-ranks was pushing C-ranks before teams could finish their last ones. B-ranks that would normally go to experienced chunin were being handed to fresh ones with a jonin attached. The mission board turned over faster than anyone at the desk could remember, and the chunin running the paperwork started working double shifts without being asked.

Lee noticed. His team was pulling three missions a week where they used to pull one. Escort jobs, bandit clearances, patrol routes through the outer territories of the Land of Fire. The girls didn't complain because they no longer had to do chore missions. They were happy about the change of pace despite not knowing why.

Lee also didn't know why. He asked Kakashi once, in passing, whether something had changed.

"The Hokage wants the village ready." Kakashi said without looking up from his book. "Ready for what… You’ll know soon."

Lee accepted that because he trusted Guy and he trusted Kakashi and because the missions themselves weren't beyond his team's ability. But this reminded him of how things were after the invasion. More shinobi at the gates. More patrols outside the village. The academy instructors being sent out on missions…

…

Tenten came by from time to time.

She'd show up at Training Ground Nine and spend the morning teaching Lee's students things Lee couldn't teach them. Bukijutsu mainly, sometimes ninjutsu.

"You're choking it, Fuki." Tenten told Fuki, adjusting her grip on the nunchaku for the third time. "The chain does the work. Your wrist is just helping."

"I like choking things." Fuki said.

"I’m going to choke you if you don’t loosen up already." Tenten threatened.

Fuki loosened up immediately. Devil-sensei was Devil-sensei but Tenten-san… Wasn’t anything like how Devil-sensei taught… She was immune to their feminine wiles and did not teach them softly or gently.

After the students left, Tenten would stay and train with Lee. Tenten was integrating the Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu into her Endless Weapon style, using shadow clones of thrown weapons to create fields of steel that she could pull from mid-combat. Lee had to work harder each time to bring her down. It seemed like she got better after every spar.

…

Sakura came over anytime she was free and he was free.

She had her own training, her own schedule, her own life that didn't revolve around a boy in a green suit. But several times a week she'd appear at whatever training ground Lee was using with a bento box she'd made that morning, and they'd sit in the grass and eat and talk.

She told him about a surgery she'd assisted Tsunade with. A chunin who'd taken a poisoned blade through the liver during a mission in the Land of Grass. Tsunade had kept the man alive with one hand while extracting the poison with the other.

"Lady Tsunade said my chakra control is better than hers was at my age." Sakura happily bragged. 

"That is incredible, Sakura-chan."

"Ino is catching up though. She's annoyingly talented when she puts her mind to it."

"Then you will both become incredible medical-nin and save many lives."

Sakura looked at him with a roll of her eyes. “Focus on complimenting me instead of other girls, okay? You should be saying that I’ll be better than Ino and save more lives than Ino.” She leaned into his shoulder and gave him a quick peck on the lips.

Lee kissed back before laughing, “You’ll become an even better medical-nin than Lady Tsunade. How is that?”

“Much better.” She looked into his eyes, the food forgotten and pushed him down to enjoy their rare time alone a bit more.

…

The other genin showed up from time to time.

Kiba was one of the first. He just appeared at Training Ground Nine one evening after Lee's students had gone home and said he wanted to work on his skills. Lee didn’t mind, more than happy to help. He sparred with Kiba and Akamaru, helping them improve their man-beast taijutsu.

Kiba got his butt kicked but he wasn’t upset. He'd seen what Lee's students could do. Girls who'd been genin for months were hitting harder and moving faster than he was, and he'd been a genin for way longer! The gap wasn't talent. It was training. And the person responsible for that training was standing in front of him offering to help.

Choji came of his own volition, reminded of the Sasuke Retrieval Mission. Then Shino, who was interested because everyone else seemed to be. Hinata came once with Sakura and Ino.

They all came after hours. After Lee's students were gone. Because training alongside girls half their experience level who could possibly already match or beat them was not something any of them wanted to experience.

Lee never mentioned it to anyone. He trained whoever showed up with the same enthusiasm he would give anyone. More than happy to help his fellow comrades and friends. Guy-sensei even told him he had plans to have him start a new group in the coming future called the Suicide Corps based on his effective teaching ability. Apparently his talent was comparable to Ebisu who became a special jonin specifically because of his teaching ability.

…

His students were becoming something excellent.

Fuki's Strong Fist stopped looking like an imitation and started looking like her own style, heavier and wilder than Lee's, built for her body and her temperament. Ami's chain whip mastery became dangerous enough that she could transition between striking and binding in a moment’s notice. Kasumi's Soft Fist could now kill with her counters, the water-like flow of her movement becoming something that opponents couldn't expect until they were already struck.

Neji was never in the village lately.

ROOT squads were being deployed beyond the borders on a weekly rotation, slipping into the Land of Lightning and the Land of Earth and the Land of Water to gather intelligence, sabotage, and eliminate targets whose removal would make the coming war slightly more survivable for Konoha.

Danzo sent them out because it would be foolish not to. Every somewhat talented shinobi assassinated before the invasion was one fewer problem during it. Farms and other methods of feeding or supplying enemy shinobi were destroyed, giving one more day the attacking forces would need to resupply. Every piece of intelligence brought back was one more variable Konoha could account for in their defense plans.

Danzo also sent them out because Danzo had his own plans. If Konoha fell, the rebuilding would need a leader. A leader with an intelligence network already in place, with operatives already loyal, with a foundation already laid. The old man was shoring up the village's defenses with one hand and preparing to inherit its ashes with the other, and if the contradiction bothered him, his face never showed it.

Neji carried out every mission. He killed when the mission required killing. He gathered intelligence when the mission required gathering. And he returned to the village each time with his mask on ready for the next mission.

He saw Lee once, through the trees, teaching a bunch of chunin and jonin in the Eight Gates dressed in similar attire to Lee’s green jumpsuit. 

Ridiculous… Was that outfit a requirement or were there more freaks than Lee and Guy who preferred wearing things like that?

Under Lady Tsunade, Sakura and Ino were becoming the two best medical-nin Konoha had produced in a generation, and they were still teenagers.

Tsunade worked them harder as the months went on. More shifts at the hospital. More complex cases. More hours studying poisons and antidotes and medical ninjutsu.

Neither of them asked why the training had intensified. They were smart enough to notice. The increased number of injured shinobi in the hospital. Sometimes being sent out with squads of medical-nin to retrieve injured shinobi. Being handed more surgeries and patients by themselves. How much busier Master Tsunade became.

It was obvious. Something was coming and it was coming soon.

Lee was walking home from a mission debriefing when an ANBU appeared in front of him, delivered a single sentence, and vanished.

"The Hokage requests your presence at Training Ground Six."

Lee saluted and made his way to Training Ground Six.

Training Ground Six was where Guy had trained him for the Chunin Exam finals. Where he'd learned the anti-Sharingan combat style, reading opponents through their feet instead of their eyes.

Guy was already there. He was in the center of the field in his green suit doing incredibly fast push-ups with his Hokage hat sitting on a tree stump nearby. He pushed himself off of the ground and back to his feet when he spotted Lee. 

"Lee!"

"Guy-sensei!"

"I have been doing paperwork since I became Hokage. Do you know what that much paperwork does to a man, Lee?"

"It... makes him very excellent at paperwork?"

"It makes him want to really loosen up and go wild." Guy grinned. "I asked Kakashi to spar with me. Do you know what he said?"

"He said he had other training to do?"

"He said he had other training to do! Can you believe that? My eternal rival, refusing to spend an afternoon of youthful combat with his best friend!" Guy shook his head in theatrical outrage. "So I am asking you instead."

Lee's posture straightened. His eyes brightened. "I would be honored, Guy-sensei!"

"Before we begin. I have something to tell you." Guy’s voice changed.

Lee waited.

"You know the Body Supremacy Jutsu, the jutsu you developed?"

"Yes?"

"I have been practicing it for a while now." Guy held up his hand and flexed it. "After you shared it with me, I began practicing it. Infusing chakra into my own cells. Nurturing my body the way you nurtured yours."

Lee's eyes widened. "Guy-sensei, you..."

"I have gotten stronger, Lee. Noticeably. My recovery between Gate uses is faster. My baseline strength has increased. My eyesight, my hearing, all of it has improved. The jutsu is extraordinary. Which is why I added it to the Scroll of Seals."

Lee blinked. "The Scroll of Seals?"

"The forbidden scroll. The one stored in the Hokage's residence. It contains techniques deemed too dangerous for general use. The First Hokage started it." Guy paused. "Your technique belongs there, Lee. In the wrong hands, without the necessary chakra control required, it could kill the user. But in the right hands, it is one of the most powerful jutsu in existence."

Lee was quiet for a moment. His technique. The one he'd developed alone in the hospital as a boy, infusing chakra into his muscles and bones because he was sick of waiting to challenge Neji. The technique that nobody had taught him was in the Scroll of Seals. Alongside the techniques of the former Hokages.

"I doubt I could probably use anything in the Scroll of Seals. It’s mostly ninjutsu isn’t it?" Lee figured.

Guy laughed. "You know one technique from it." He paused, then corrected himself. "Actually, two now. The Eight Inner Gates and Body Supremacy Jutsu."

"The Eight Inner Gates are in the Scroll of Seals?"

"That’s right! And now your technique sits alongside it." Guy told him before cracking his knuckles. "Now. Help your Hokage loosen up his aging bones!"

Lee smiled as he readied himself in the Strong Fist stance. Guy did the same. Thirty meters of open ground between them. They vanished at the same time. The ground cracked where they'd been standing. Thirty meters collapsed to nothing.

Lee opened with a jump kick aimed at Guy's jaw. Guy ducked it and answered with a straight punch to Lee's exposed side. Lee twisted mid-air and caught the punch on his forearm, then used the momentum of Guy's hit to flip backward and land in a low crouch. He launched forward again before his feet had fully settled, driving a rising knee toward Guy's chin.

Guy tilted his head. Lee's knee grazed his cheek. Guy grabbed the knee before Lee could pull it back, holding him in place for a fraction of a second. Lee saw Guy's other fist coming and kicked off Guy's thigh with his free leg, ripping his knee out of the grip and flipping over Guy entirely. He landed behind his sensei and swept at his ankles. Guy hopped the sweep and came down with both feet aimed at Lee's chest. Lee rolled sideways and the stomp cracked the ground where he'd been.

They reset. Three meters apart. Both smiled.

"Hoo! I can feel the heat!" Guy shouted happily.

“I’m burning up, Guy-sensei!” Lee shouted back.

Lee rushed him again. He feinted high with his right, watched Guy raise his guard, then dropped low and drove his fist into Guy's stomach. Guy flexed his core and tanked it. Guy's counter was a spinning downward elbow aimed at the back of Lee's head. Lee pulled his fist back and raised both forearms to catch it. The force drove him down into the earth. He shoved upward and threw Guy's arm wide, creating an opening at Guy's ribs. Lee threw a four-hit combination. Ribs, ribs, stomach, chest.

Guy took the first three. On the fourth he caught Lee's wrist and hip-tossed him across the field. Lee flipped mid-air, landed on his feet, and skidded to a stop.

Guy rolled his shoulder once and grinned. Then something changed. He was on Lee before the skid marks had settled, and Lee barely got his arms up in time to block a kick that sent him sliding backward through the dirt. Everything before this had been his sensei's warm-up.

Lee set his feet and waited. Guy came at him with a straight punch. Lee swayed it. Guy followed with a second and Lee parried it wide. The third came faster than the first two combined and caught Lee on his forearm hard enough to buckle his guard. Lee used the impact. He let it push his arm back and turned the motion into an elbow strike aimed at Guy's chin. Guy tilted away. The elbow cut air. But Lee was already following the elbow's arc into a spinning back kick that clipped Guy's shoulder.

Guy skidded sideways. He tested the shoulder. It was still good.

Lee reached for his belt. The weights separated into their components and the chains linked and the handles settled into his palms. Across the field, Guy produced his own pair from his waist. Identical in design. The weapon of their shared style, Sōshūga, Twin Fangs!

They came together and the field filled with the sound of metal on metal.

Lee opened with both nunchaku swinging, left at Guy's temple, right at his ribs, staggered by a half-beat so the second strike arrived as the first was being blocked. Guy knocked the temple strike wide with his left handle and caught the rib shot on his right, redirecting it downward. Before the deflection finished he was already countering, both of his nunchaku coming in from opposite sides, a scissor pattern aimed at Lee's neck and hip. Lee pulled his handles back and blocked both, high with his left, low with his right. The four handles cracked together almost simultaneously.

They separated for half a breath and came back in.

Guy swung his left nunchaku in a tight arc at Lee's jaw. Lee tilted away and punished the miss with his right handle across Guy's forearm. Guy groaned in pain as his bones cracked. His right nunchaku was already looping around for Lee's knee. Lee dropped his left handle to intercept and the block jarred his wrist. He swung his right at Guy's head while the block was still ringing. Guy ducked it and swung both handles forward into Lee's chest. Lee skidded backward as the bones in his chest were cracked, feet plowing furrows in the dirt.

He came back swinging before his feet stopped sliding. Both nunchaku moving in offset figure-eights, the four handles tracing overlapping arcs in front of him. Guy matched it. His own twin figure-eights met Lee's and the space between them became a blur of spinning steel, handles clashing and deflecting and redirecting in a continuous exchange so fast that the individual strikes stopped being visible and the sound became one long metallic roar.

Lee found a gap. His right nunchaku slipped past Guy's left guard and cracked into Guy's shoulder, breaking more bones. His left followed a beat later, slamming into the same spot. Guy grunted in pain. Lee pressed it with a third strike aimed at Guy's jaw, but Guy had already adjusted. He caught Lee's right handle on both of his in a cross-block and shoved outward, blasting Lee's guard open. Both of Lee's arms flew wide. Guy hammered his right nunchaku into Lee's ribs before Lee could pull his guard back together.

More bones cracked. Lee's vision went white for a full second. His knees dipped.

He swung both nunchaku inward on reflex, a blind double-strike aimed at wherever Guy was. The left missed. The right caught Guy across the bridge of his nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood appeared.

Guy stepped back. Lee blinked the white out of his eyes and pressed forward. Both nunchaku spinning again, left and right in alternating arcs, high low high low, forcing Guy to block in rapid succession. Handle met handle, four weapons cracking against each other. Guy blocked three exchanges and on the fourth Lee feinted high with both and reversed low with both. The twin handles slammed into Guy's thighs. Guy's legs buckled for half a second. Lee drove his right handle up into Guy's stomach like an uppercut. Guy exhaled hard and folded an inch.

Guy straightened up. He wiped blood from his upper lip with the back of his hand. Then he walked forward, both nunchaku building speed in mirrored figure-eights that turned his hands into a wall of spinning steel, and his eyes said the warm-up was over.

He stepped into range and the wall came apart into strikes. Both nunchaku from three angles in under a second. Lee blocked the first on his left handle. Parried the second downward with his right. The third and fourth hit him together, one in his already broken ribs and one across his left shoulder. Lee grunted in pain. His body tried to fold. He forced it straight and swung both nunchaku back, left at Guy's chin, right at his collarbone. Guy tilted past the chin strike but the collarbone strike landed. Lee kept the momentum alive, both handles coming back around for a second pass at the same targets. His left cracked into Guy's shoulder. His right sank into Guy's ribs with everything he had left.

Guy stepped back. He looked at the bruise forming on his abdomen and then at his student.

"When did you get this strong?" Guy asked with a smile.

"Every day, Guy-sensei!"

“That’s what I want to hear, Lee! Let’s heat things up a bit!”

Lee and Guy opened the Eight Inner Gates and the air howled.