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[GUtW]—❈—04:: Bared Fangs
🕑 Added 2023-04-25 21:09:34 +0000 UTCIn a so-called mundane world where people could travel across the planet in less than forty-eight hours on giant, metal birds, and small, handheld mirrors could remotely access the collective repository of human knowledge, there lived a nineteen-year-old boy named Caleb.
Caleb was, to put it simply, a perfectly ordinary teenager; he had no special talents, no remarkable skills, and an uninteresting history. In fact, the second most important thing that Caleb ever did in his life, was die.
The most important thing that Caleb ever did was watch the anime adaptation of Naruto; a manga written by a Japanese writer/artist named Masashi Kishimoto. A manga that, while it may have been fiction in Caleb’s world, was uncomfortably close to fact in my own.
I don’t know how I wound up acquiring the memories of Caleb’s life after he got run over by that truck; maybe he got reincarnated into my body and his pathetic soul simply couldn’t hold up against mine, or maybe this is the work of some ROB somewhere.
Whatever it is, I’ve decided to shelf my curiosity on the ‘how’, and even the ‘why’ and focus more on the ‘what’; as in what can I do with this?
What I can do with it, is to use this knowledge to my advantage. To manipulate events to suit me. Attain power, an army if I need to...
Unfortunately, my first attempt at this has gone just a little FUBAR.
—❈—
Naruto and Sakura have fought each other before. Quite a few times, in fact.
It’s rather impossible to have attended The Academy together for six years, the last year of which they shared a class, without clashing a few times on the sparring mat.
Most of those “clashes” ended with Sakura victorious, but that was only because, in those matches, Sakura had the option of knocking Naruto out of bounds, or landing three hits on him first.
This match is nothing like those matches.
Sakura herself made the one rule of this match; knockout, meaning that, unless one of them throws in the towel, this fight only ends when one or both combatants are rendered unable to continue.
This changes everything. And while I know that Sakura isn’t anywhere near as pathetic right now as the story made her out to be, I don’t like her chances in trying to knock out Naruto, the only student from our time in The Academy with S-grade stamina.
Regardless of the outcome of this fight however, I will be paying close attention, if only to know what I have to work with going forward.
Before Naruto and Sakura clash, I reach within myself for the “gift” Itachi gave me the day he wiped out our clan; I activate my sharingan.
It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to use the sharingan. Maybe even impossible.
I could say the expected things, of course; like how every colour in the world is suddenly brighter, every shape sharper, every motion crisper and slower, and every detail enhanced. But it’s more than that.
It’s how I imagine it would feel for someone born blind to suddenly become able to see; incredible, exhilarating, terrifying, utterly confusing, but most of all, addicting.
Naruto throws the first punch, telegraphed, even without the sharingan.
From most ninja, it would be an obvious attempt at mindfucking an opponent by making them question if the obviously telegraphed punch is a feint meant to distract, or a true strike meant to be ignored.
From Naruto however, it is nothing but a straightforward attempt to hit an opponent.
Sakura grabs the boy’s arm and tosses him twenty-five feet into the air.
Ah, there’s that A-plus strength she’s known for.
In our first year in The Academy, our potential for pretty much every physical and chakra related attribute was measured and graded.
The grades are not a representation of one’s current ability, they’re a guideline to inform you of your strengths and weaknesses.
For example, assuming they get the exact same training, a ninja with B-plus strength will never be as strong as one with A-minus strength.
On the other hand, if the ninja with B-plus strength happens to be a taijutsu specialist, while the ninja with A-plus specializes in ninjutsu, or they both have the same specialization but the B-plus simply does more strength training, then that B-plus will undoubtedly be stronger.
The grades run from the lowest D, to C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+, A-, A, A+, and finally, the highest, S.
Sakura’s greatest strengths are her S-grade chakra control, and her A+ strength; the two attributes, along with her good head for theory, that had seen her come out as fourth place in our graduating class of 156 students.
Ironically enough, Naruto’s worst weaknesses are his abysmal chakra control (a D-grade) and a head that seems to resist all attempts at theory work.
On the flip side, Naruto’s greatest strengths, his S-grade chakra reserve and S-grade stamina, are Sakura’s weaknesses, with a D-grade chakra reserve and C-grade stamina.
Huh. I guess in some ways they’re mirror images of each other.
As Naruto goes sailing into the air, Sakura jumps after him.
The boy’s eyes widen, fully aware of what the girl intends, right before her sandaled foot connects with his hasty block over his stomach.
There’s a crack like a gunshot, and Naruto shoots higher up into the air, his A- constitution the only thing that saves him from a shattered arm.
Sakura begins to fall back down, but then she spins, rights herself, and kicks off the air after Naruto.
There it is, what I’ve suspected her plan is from the moment she threw Naruto into the air.
The Omnidirectional/Terrain Traversal Technique, colloquially known as the “Wall” Walking Technique; a technique that allows a ninja to walk on any surface, be it mud, quicksand, water, and yes, even air.
It takes total mastery of the technique to get to the point where one can walk on air... Well, that or S-grade chakra control.
Sakura’s jump takes her above Naruto, and with a spinning axe kick, she sends the defenceless boy rocketing back down.
This isn’t enough to kill Naruto, it likely isn’t even enough to knock him unconscious, but if he hits the rooftop at the speed he’s failing, there is no way he’d walking it off.
If he hits the rooftop.
Ten feet from the roof, Naruto makes four handsigns, the resulting jutsu eagerly copied by my greedy eyes.
White smoke that fails to blind me erupts around the falling boy, and two perfect copies of himself appear, both grabbing and tossing him upward to arrest the momentum of his bone-breaking descent.
Naruto and his clones land gracelessly on the rooftop, while Sakura comes down seconds later walking casually on air.
I feel a flash of irritation at the girl doing so easily something that I can still barely manage the basics of, but it passes quickly.
Sakura touches down on the roof, faced with three Naruto, all of them staring at her with angry, determined eyes.
Sakura observes them, a perplexed frown on her face.
“What kind of clones are those?” she asks, her genin level chakra sensing skills telling her the same thing my eyes are telling me; there are three Naruto.
I swallow.
This is the Shadow Clone Jutsu, and if it can do even half of what it could in the story... Oh, the possibilities.
Sakura, lacking the knowledge that I do, shakes off her curiosity and dismisses the technique.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Make a thousand clones if you want, it still won’t help you.”
All three Naruto bare fang-like canines at the girl, and as one, they charge.
Sakura meets them.
—❈—
On his rooftop, Kakashi Hatake sighed.
Of course, the Hokage would go and do something dangerous like teach Naruto Uzumaki the Shadow Clone Jutsu.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, The jōnin focused back in on the fight between his new genin.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to, but it was starting to look like he would need to interfere.
