[First Round] Aeran Uchiha vs Takoda Kuma

Of course it happened like this. It had to happen like this, didn't it? Takoda Kuma, son of the Bear of the East, the summoner of turtles... my best friend. How could I do this? I hadn't sparred with him in over a year, and above all that, he thinks that I'm dead. If he wins.. no doubt he'll try to figure out who I am, so there's no way I'll be able to let that happen. This fight was everything, even more important to me than the Final Round would be if I made it that far. Takoda and I had always been on equal footing, never being able to route one another in our spars, our records against eachother were completely even.

I walked from the end of the arena, where I was placed opposite him, towards the chalk ring in the middle of the floor, as was the custom to meet your opponent before the match. I wore my black attire once more, only showing the swirling Sharingan in my eyes. I would have to somehow get the edge of Takoda this one time. This one time, I would have to beat him. I would have to go just a little bit further in order to get ahead of him for the first time, but no doubt he would be trying the same. But to him, I'm just some random guy he has to fight. He doesn't know what is really doing on here.

It would begin.

As I entered the arena I thought about my opponent, according to exam records he was simply named Uchiha. From his appearance it seemed that his name wasn't his only precaution to hide his identity which only made me more curious about who he really was under that mask. I passed through the threshold of the walkway under the stands to enter the combat zone itself I heard the roar of the crowd that surrounded us this would be the third fight and the hype was still at max level though right now it might have been from the exam commissionaires over selling talent. Apparently we were both in the top three fighters in this exam so it was expected to be a real show. As I came in my hands were in my pockets and I saw my family; mom, aunt uncle and the cousins were all accounted for and waving a big flag with the clan symbol of it to cheer me on. I grinned and gave them a thumbs up, this would reveal my Kuma claws to Aeran who no doubt would remember what having that sort of weapon meant.

I made my way to the center of the arena to meet the man in a black bodysuit, the pumpkin head proctor seemed to grow from a seed into his normally full-sized self in a matter of moments and stood between us. "Right then, you both know the rules by this point so no need to repeat them -ahem. I want a good clean match you hear me? -ahem. Now begin!" The pumpkin proctor would jump out of the way and allow the two fighters to get down to business.

"I have to end this fight and I have to end it fast," I thought to myself, "The longer I keep the fight going, the more risk I have at revealing my identity. No doubt the other Morigakure shinobi are here as well, and they can't know who I am either." I would then meet Takoda in the middle of the circle with the puppet, and the fight would begin. I was an honorable opponent, and I had to act as such whether I was hiding who I am or not. I bowed to Takoda before turning my back to him, walking back several feet, facing him again, and taking my stance. As I walked back, a thought crossed my mind, "He has the Kuma claws.. finally. Thy guy was trying hard for them, but it also has to mean that he's seen some bloodshed if they had officially been granted to him."

Takoda was primarily a taijutsu fighter, so I was going to try melee combat for the start to see how he had improved, mostly to see how he had improved in comparison to how I had improved. I reached for my left hip and drew Rebellion. A lot was riding on this fight. My entire cause was riding on this fight, and my drive to protect Takoda could only be accomplished now by defeating him. There was no way around it, because I needed the rank of Chuunin. I needed more power to take on the hammer of the Raksaka. I needed more strength.

I ran at him, holding Rebellion out to my right side and kept my knees bent, ready to change directions at any given moment. The fight had officially begun.

I charged at the masked man just as he did, circling around to the side I go in front of him and jumped up to perform a flying roundhouse aimed for his chest. It would be hard to escape from my position in the air but I had to test the waters first and assess what this guy could do.

He leaped at me, such a ballsy move, and so like Takoda to open up with. But alas, I was Aeran Uchiha, owner of the Copy Wheel Sharingan, and I could see it coming almost before he started. As soon as his foot left the ground, I bent my knees forward and arched my back backwards towards the ground, and I watched his foot fly over my head whilst darting both hands up towards his ankle. I aimed to grab it, and would pull him backwards to throw his momentum off and I slammed down into the ground. By the time I had finished the motion, I was already almost completely standing tall again, springing up onto my feet and whirling around to look at him head-on. I ran at him again, sword held at a decent height.

He got out of the way, this made the stories of the sharingan all to true as not many genin could dodge me. I would catch myself with my arms to brace the impact and then roll forward to get back on my feet without missing a beat. I clenched my hands into fists to draw the claws out into battle position, charging forward towards this opponent I would start swinging at different parts of his torso to try and land some blows.

"Left, right, left, duck, jab.." were the commands I was giving myself in short, decisive bursts as I rapidly registered Takoda's attacks, blocking with my blade, dodging, and lashing back out. I escaped the quick fray only for a moment to catch my breath, but not long enough for the pain of my muscles beginning to wear away to register into my mind. Immediately, however, I jumped back at him, sword flaring. First, I would swing the blade towards his legs before pulling back to jab at his stomach as he would land he he jumped to avoid my swipe. I then vaulted back into a backflip and landed a few meters away to give myself space to evade the counter attack I'm sure would follow.

Using my claws I caught his blade with one hand the first time. The second time I just used both of my bladed hands to push up and raise his weapon to miss me by striking above my shoulder. He moved backwards but I didn't stop for even a moment. I would jump again though this time I would jump straight forward, my knee bent and aimed to slam into him on impact.

This was it, Taijutsu time. He jumped at me after I leaped backwards, giving me a split second to re-sheathe my sword and prepare a counter. As his knee was about to hit my stomach, my left hand was already aiming to meet the right side of the same knee, which would be pushing it out of the way and spinning Takoda as my right hand went towards back of the neck of his shirt. I would aim to grab it and pull down as his already present momentum pushed us both to the ground. As we fell, I sacrificed falling onto the flat of my back to angle my knee into HIS lower back, which would certainly cause at least some damage, moreso than the fall would. After he would roll off of my knee, I would roll the opposite direction, push off on my left hand, and get back onto my feet in an instant. I took a couple of heaves as the pain from landing on the flat of my back sunk in, shorting my breath and causing me to grunt for just a moment before I could push the pain away and focus again.

His knee nailed me in the back, that would leave a small bruise but this early in the fight it shouldn't slow me down unless that sort of injury started piling up. I rolled forward and used that momentum to use both feet to aim a kick at Uchiha's chest, the stun from the impact seemed still slightly present so I a shot at this but my window of opportunity was limited.

Since I was already rolling while Takoda was rolling, I managed to evade his attack. He seemed rather hesitant as me, which means he felt the pain from the last action as well. I ran at him to take initiative on the small chance that I had, and began another assault. I threw a left hook, then a right, then pretended to feign back and down into a crouch before rising up into an uppercut aimed at his lower jaw.

Raising my hands up by my face like a boxer I was able to take the impact from his attack with my forearms which stung for a second. Then he ducked down and tried to nail me with an uppercut. At the last second I pulled back and thrust my open hand up to try and get a hold on his throat to prepare for the most powerful physical strike I had developed in the last year.

Luckily I still had my left arm free after the uppercut, or I was in for a grab to the throat, which never ends up well in any circumstance for the victim, which would have been me. With that free left hand, I managed to push away Takoda's hand just in time as I felt his nails scrape across the very surface of my neck as his hand was pushed to the side of my face. I then immediately jumped backwards a few meters again as he would have to re-evaluate me as I would begin to do with him.

"Well, it seems we still can't get the drop on one another, eh? Some things never change I guess." I said using chakra focused into my throat to make my voice sound intensely deep and melancholy, the same fake voice I had used at the Summit. It was time to speed up this fight, for only with the element of surprise would I be able to win. I begin to charge chakra into my throat and into my tattoo, preparing my next offensive as I drew Rebellion once more and took a defensive stance.

The voice was new but the words, they were all to familiar to me. That in itself was enough to set me off, this kid had somehow learned the interactions between me and Aeran in years past and was mocking them as my friend was dead now. I shifted my stance and grabbed one arm with the other as chakra started to build up. This fight wasn't going to last long now, I'd make sure of that.

I decided to hold the charged chakra in my cursed tattoo for a bit later, and I kept charging into my throat. I had the power of surprise still on my side in many senses of the word, but to be safe I leapt back a few meters to make sure I had enough time to prepare my strategy.

"It's sad to think you can beat me when you couldn't even save him. Hell, you didn't even know he was dead until someone told you. I wonder who it was that told you, hm?" I said creepily before letting off a maniacal laugh that filled the arena. All eyes seemed to turn to look at our fight, which is what I expected with the scene I was causing. I had to keep egging him on, I knew that Takoda did worse when he was in his blind rages of anger and other emotions. I felt bad hurting him like this, moreso than I felt bad hurting him in battle, because no man deserves to have their thinking controlled by another. Sadly, however, that's how I specialize in fighting, which is what we would soon see.

The chakra building in my arm was starting to make those muscles twitch with the amount of power going into them. These things he was saying, it had to have been him that delivered the message those months ago and now he seemed to be hinting that it was even him that did the deed. My heels dug into the ground as my glance turned down, my eyes being covered in shadow as my breathing grew heavy.

Done.

I released the chakra in my throat and produced a loud, but shockingly deep whistle, that seemed to make all who heard the whistle filled with sadness and a sense of major loss, like the world as they knew it would be devoid of all meaning. I aimed to lock Takoda in the genjutsu called the "Pain of Rejection." While in the jutsu, he would be playing out all of the dreams he had for his future, which would take years in his head but mere seconds out here. To become leader of the Kuma Clan just before the entire clan, save for him, would be slaughtered. To win the war for the Empire before watching the entire village of Morigakure burning to the ground. To find me, just to see me poisoned the next night I slept. And then the worst part would happen. He would first see his father, telling him that he was nothing but a disappointment. He would see everyone in the village casting him out as a failure, marking him as a rebel, and even trying to kill him though he would not know why, he would only feel as though he did something terribly wrong. And then, I would appear before him. I would appear, and I would let him know that I was dead only because of his failure. He should not have left me leave the village, because maybe then, I would still be alive. I would still be his best friend.

And on the outside of the confines of the brain, I activated my attack. "Ah, so now you use me?" the Sky Demon taunted me in my head. "Let's just get this over with," I said back to him before succumbing to the curse. I bent over and fell to my knees as the pain starting in my back spread to the rest of my body. I stood up, covered in a swirling tattoo form head to toe, though he wouldn't see it, and my physical abilities were multiplied tenfold. I sprinted at him, and prepared the final blow while he gave into his mind.

Spoiler:

50/100

I heard a rather sad sound but then for some reason was unable to remember anything before it, without realizing it I had been caught within a genjutsu. Every dream I had ever had, ironically twisted to cause me pain. Every nightmare I had seen in my mind was played out, forcing me to watch Aeran die first hand and even have my very core shaken by the words of the father I had never had the chance to meet. Outside the illusion my body continued to stockpile power in my arm out of pure instinct, there was nothing left in this fight now. This was more than I could handle and slowly my mind was coming apart at the seams.

I saw his body lock up in pain as his mind was consumed by the torture I had just initiated upon it, and I continued to charge at him. I raised my fist, a wild boiling rage amped up inside of my bones at the hands of the mighty curse, but... this was not what I had trained for. I trained my body against this very curse so that I may use it for good. For a moment, and a moment alone, I stood face to face, looking into the blank eyes of my friend, fist raised behind me, aimed at his head.

"Do it."

"I can't. He.. he's my best friend. I can't do it."

"You want to get stronger, don't you? You want to succeed in this world where all else fail. How can you expect to defeat the Raksaka if you can't shatter the skull of this little punk?!"

"He's not a punk! He's Takoda Kuma, son of the Bear of the East, and he is my best friend. He is not some victim that will lie at my feet because of some uncontrollable sensation of anger brought by.. by this."

"He's a runt, and a tool. He is merely a stepping stone for your power. NOW DO IT!"

With a sudden burst of anger, and a flowing power through my muscles, my eyes flared as I screamed in frustration, "AHHHHH!" My fist flew forward, and the fight was over. It was finally over.

My temper flared down as I pulled my fist out of the ground I had slammed it into, and the rage subsided along with the curse as it retreated back into the tattoo on my back. I conquered the demon, and his power was now completely under my control, and I would not hurt my friend more than I had already. This fight was over, and I had given up. I drew a kunai from my backpack, and sat down on the ground next to Takoda, waiting for him to exit the genjutsu, deal his blind rage to me, and end the fight. I would rather be beaten to a pulp and have my identity revealed than carry out my original plan, because I learned a lesson that day that I would never forget. I would never forget the first round of the Chuunin Exams, where I learned:

You must never sacrifice your own values for the sake of your goal, for it would become an empty sacrifice for an empty dream.

I drew a kunai, and I stabbed him in the tricep, which would be enough pain to end the genjutsu, because I knew Takoda had never been good at kai. I sat down with my legs crossed and waited for him to come to his senses, and I closed my eyes, awaiting whatever would come next.

As the illusion lifted from my mind my fist launched itself at the man known as Uchiha, it would land in the center of his chest and snap the majority of his ribs before the force of the attack sent him flying backwards. I fell to my knees, hands on my head as both the pain of my rage headache and the distortion of having recently been under an illusion made it seem like my skull was breaking apart and falling to stab into my brain. A loud cry of pain that mid-way through turned into the roar of a bear escaped from me loud enough to be clearly heard from the stands. This fight was over, officially. But there was still something left to be done.

80/100

Crippling Strike:

I took the hit to the chest, pain filing up through my neck and into my head, at the same time it went down through my sides and into my hips. Everything seemed broken by the time I smacked into the ground and skidded for several meters before finally coming to a stop. Consciousness was fading from me as I peacefully succumbed to my wounds, but there was something I had to stay awake to do before accepting this loss. As the puppet came down to check on my well-being, I spoke to him in broken breaths, aware that most of my outfit had been torn off, and half of my face was revealed. I was too tired to mask my voice, and in too much pain to focus, so I grunted, "I give up and accept defeat. But before you declare a winner, let me speak to him."

Unfortunately, I couldn't maintain being awake for as long as it took for him to walk over, to no doubt rip off my mask and solve my identity, so I quickly wrote something in the dirt with my right hand. It read:

"The Tale of Aeran the Gallant... you missed the beginning."

I faded into unconsciousness with a smile on my face. I was at peace.

[Exit]

Slowly I got up to my feet and walked over to my downed opponent, he had said he gave up but wanted to speak to me. He had passed out however before I got there but what I saw I couldn't believe. I took off the remnants of the mask to reveal the friend I thought I had lost all this time. I then turned him onto his back, looking from my fist to his collapsed chest. I couldn't comprehend everything that was going on so I turned to the pumpkin head, "You'll take him to the hospital right?" The proctor simply nodded, "Alright then, I'll go see him after he wakes up." I looked into the stands and found Hebi, signalling him to meet me at the gates as I walked down the path under the crowd to leave the stadium and clear my head.

[exit]