Naruto : Chapter 77

Sasuke landed some devastating combos on the black-clad boy and finally kicked him into a tree in the arena. Kankuro fell to the ground, breathing hard and blood coming from his mouth. Hayate appeared next to him and checked him.

"Kankuro is unable to continue. Winner is Sasuke Uchiha." He announced to the cheers of the audience.

...

Kakashi was very pleased how easily Sasuke had taken out Kankuro. From what he had seen Kankuro had at least suffered a few broken ribs and that would make him incapable of participating in the upcoming invasion.

Not to mention that as the son of the Kazekage he would make a valuable hostage after it.

He would have the medics sedate him, supposedly to make the healing process easier. Right now they were carrying him out of the arena while Sasuke gave a short wave to the spectators while walking back to the competitors' box.

"An impressive fight, Kakashi." Sarutobi said.

"Yes, your student showed great skill. Kankuro will have to become a lot better until he can fight on that level." The Kazekage said frowning.

"Ah, thank you. I'm proud of him. He showed good strategy and power. It's promising for a possible promotion." Kakashi told them.

"Indeed." Sarutobi agreed. "Your students seem to overall dominate their fights."

"Well, I trained them really hard since I took the team. They all learned a lot." Kakashi said proudly.

Naruto and Sakura congratulated Sasuke to his performance.

"You really showed them how it's done." Sakura said.

"Yes, good work." Naruto complimented.

"Thanks, but he wasn't that strong. I hope my next opponent is stronger. I really want to get a good idea where I stand." Sasuke told them.

The other two nodded, knowing that it was true. With just one puppet Kankuro wasn't as dangerous as a puppeteer could truly be.

...

Choji stood opposite of Gaara, not really sure how to go about this fight. He had no idea of what Gaara was capable of, but he was determined to do his best.

Ino had already lost her fight to Hinata and team seven's members had both won their matches. He wanted to at least not shame his team and sensei. His opponent looked bored at having to fight him. The proctor gave the signal to start and Choji found himself directly activating his family's jutsu.

The only information that he had been able to get about Gaara was that he was dangerous and had no qualms with killing his opponents. Kiba had warned him about that as team eight had seen how Gaara had coldly dispatched of a team from Ame.

So not getting caught in his techniques was vital. Choji expanded his body and went into his human meat tank to get a hit on Gaara before he could act. To his surprise he found himself stopped by some kind of wall.

He tried again twice from other directions, but every time he was stopped. He knew he had to change plans, so he rolled away and then returned to his normal form. Gaara simply stood in his former position, not really doing much.

"You don't satisfy mother." Gaara said darkly.

Choji had no idea what this was about. Was Gaara mad? What had his mother to do with anything?

Around Gaara there were tendrils of sand hovering. So probably some sand jutsu had stopped his attack. Well, sand wasn't a normal jutsu base. Probably he had kneaded a lot of chakra into it to let it react like it did. It was too bad that he didn't have any jutsus that drained chakra from a place. So what could be done against sand in general?

Before he could think things through he had to dodge an attack from Gaara's sand. He ran away, now happy that his team had got the resistance seals after a month of training as otherwise he knew he wouldn't have been able to avoid getting caught in the sand. The main question now was how could he hit Gaara?

His strongest taijutsu move had been blocked and he needed time to get it ready. Time he suspected he wouldn't have against this opponent.

He knew a few ninjutsus, his element was lightning, but they were still too weak to have a real chance against Gaara it seemed. Still, he wanted to do his best, so he would see where he got.

He made two clones on the run and hoped that Gaara would at least fall for them a moment so that he could ready his jutsu. He better tried his better one first. It would cost a lot of chakra, but he knew that with this opponent he wouldn't have a chance otherwise.

"Hiding among clones won't save you. I'll quickly dispatch you." Gaara said.

Choji meanwhile was farthest away from Gaara compared to his clones and managed to get the handsigns done.

"Lightning release: Lightning arrow." Choji exclaimed and fired an arrow of lightning at Gaara.

He hoped it would hit, but there was a good chance as Gaara hadn't moved from his position at all during their fight.

A wall of sand quickly intercepted the arrow and there was no damage done to Gaara at all. Choji cursed under his breath. He had expected a bit more effect. From the information he had got from Asuma sensei earth jutsus were inferior to lightning jutsus.

But obviously sand was either different or Gaara's jutsus were at a much higher level than Choji's. Well, sand also turned to glass if it was heated massively or turned to mud if you drenched it in water.

The problem was that Choji had neither in his arsenal. There was no way that a weapons barrage would get through that sand either and he only had two explosive tags on him.

He wrapped one around a kunai handle and then tried to mix it unnoticed under a barrage of his weapons. Sadly Gaara still didn't need to move as his sand intercepted everything Choji threw at him. The bomb hit and exploded, but in the end there was no damage to Gaara.

Choji raised his hand.

"I forfeit. I can clearly not get through the defence he has. Trying that at my current level would be stupid." Choji declared.

"Winner by forfeit: Gaara Sabaku." Hayate announced.

There was little applause from the ranks. While Choji had shown a few good techniques, there had been no real action.

...

Kakashi knew that Choji had made the right decision. Gaara was far above his level and Choji lacked a good way to get through that defence.

He also didn't have help in the fight that could make up for Choji's problems or distract Gaara for Choji to get a god hit in. That sand defence was really something else.

"I was sure this fight would go like this." The Kazekage said smugly. "Gaara is simply the best genin we have."

"Well, his defence with the sand was very impressive, but he didn't show a lot to work with to decide if he deserves to become a chunin." Kakashi stated.

"Oh, don't worry about that, he will do that later. No insult to one of your village's clans, but the boy wasn't advanced enough to go up against Gaara. And the Akimichis mostly excel at taijutsu if I remember correctly.

A pure taijutsu fighter or one with a few jutsus to support him has no chance." The Kazekage declared.

From what they had seen that statement certainly rang true. But Choji deserved some positive comments in his file for judging a situation properly and retreating as long as he still could.

He also seemed to have learned a bit of strategizing, perhaps from hanging out with Shikamaru a lot. With a bit more time Choji would make a good chunin.

...

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