I twist, and the motion takes half an eternity. Sasuke's dragon bullet enters my view, swallows up everything else, until it's just me and the fire. The heat stings my eyes, but I can't bring myself to look away.
...
It can't end like this. Not after I worked so hard, not after I called Sasuke out in front of our whole team. I have to show him that I'm not less.
I can't let him think this is all that I am, because if he starts looking at me with the kind of pity, the kind of condescension that everyone always has when they've heard of my defect, I don't know what I'll do. All I need is to show him I can overcome his fire, even if my element can't. All I need is a chance.
Just give me a chance.
Something heavy hits me, then. Something enormously, deafeningly loud in its existence. Something monstrous. I gasp as something in my stomach shifts, and the pressure that's been straining against my stomach since last night doubles. I don't know how or why, but my seal moves, sliding back a notch. Coming loose.
Let me howl.
Wind surges up from my stomach of its own accord, coursing through my throat and pressing up against my clenched teeth. My eyes fly open wide as it spins, surpassing any loop I've ever managed in the span of a heartbeat, and then doubling in size and speed. Another current of wind slams into that one, spinning faster and faster, and then another after that. Wind pours from my stomach in waves, and it is so enormously strong.
The dragon bullet bellows triumphantly as it finally closes in on me, jaws closing around me, snapping me up in a single gargantuan bite. I vaguely hear spectators scream in mixed dismay and delight as I disappear amidst the flames, and vaguely feel the scorching heat of the jutsu closing in around me, aching to eat me alive. Then it all becomes too much for me to hold in, and I open my mouth wide.
There is no name for what I'm about to do, made up on the spot or otherwise. I don't form a hand seal, I don't consider just how bad an idea it is to use a wind technique while inside a fire dragon, nor do I wonder where all of the wind is coming from. My awareness fizzles out to a single point in the middle of my stomach, a single unyielding pressure.
I open my mouth wide, and I howl.
I have never seen a hurricane before, for all that I like to compare my own techniques to them from time to time. I have never experienced a natural disaster capable of tearing century old trees from their roots and flattening buildings like paper cranes. I don't even know what they're supposed to feel like, aside from what little I've learned from them in classes.
But as the dragon is swept away from me and my world dissolves into pure and furious wind, I realize it probably feels something like this.
Gales upon gales of wrathful chakra slam into Sasuke's trump card, and the elemental advantage the dragon has over them isn't even a consideration. The wind crushes its head and drives its thrashing body against the arena wall, spreading it thin across the stone. I don't stop howling, can't stop howling, and the sheer force of the attack's backlash sends me flying up to the highest point of the barrier the jonin proctors are maintaining.
My back slams into it, and the barrier flickers above me, a vibrant yellow dome. The wind keeps coming, pressing me flat against the dome and digging deeper and deeper into the fire dragon. It works its way down through the trees, down to the very ground level of the arena, overwhelming every lick of flame it touches.
All at once, the arena is clear, and I can see my teammate directly below me, clinging desperately to a tree branch as the wind rails against him. I clench my fists, and though I don't know where this new strength came from or why I can't stop it, I know what's causing it. I focus on the pressure in my stomach, driving every last ounce of my strength against it as I fight to regain control of my body. It fights back, snapping out at the tenketsu surrounding my seal, but I slam it back down.
My teeth come together with a sharp click, and I find myself in open air once again as the wind disappears below me, rushing down to the bottom of the arena and dispersing one gale at a time. Sasuke doesn't even realize the technique has ended until seconds later, and by then it's too late. I crash into him and wrap him up in my arms like my life depends on it.
"THEY'RE IN FREE FALL! I don't know how, but Uzumaki Naruto has overwhelmed his opponents technique, and is now dragging him down to the arena floor!"
Sasuke struggles against my bear hug, but his jabs have become weaker, his thrashing slower. Although I still don't know how he even managed to pull a technique like that off in the first place, it looks like he used up just about all his strength in hunting me down with it. Given that, I move one of the hands holding his back to his head, and slam our heads together hard enough to daze him.
We blow past dozens of branches on our way to the scorched earth below, and I wait until the very last moment before I slap my hands together in the serpent seal and let loose a great breakthrough aimed at the ground. I wait until our momentum has been reduced from definitely fatal to probably survivable, cut the jutsu, and then adjust my grip on my teammate as we land and slam him into the ground.
I fall into a crouch beside my best friend while he arches up and then crumples onto his back, and for what might be several seconds or an hour I just stay beside him and wait for everything to catch up to me. I take quick, ragged breaths, blinking against my sudden lightheadedness and the odd tilt to the world. A dull ringing settles in my ears as I watch Sasuke struggle to regain the wind I knocked out of him, and only when he manages a painful gasp does sound come rushing back to me.
It's loud.
A pair of armored boots appear at the edge of my vision, and I look up to see the samurai Jo leaning over me with a vibrant grin on his face. He grasps me by the wrist and pulls me to my feet, throwing my arm up and crying out for all the elemental nations to hear.
"Winner of the first match between Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto of Konohagakure: UZUMAKI NARUTO!"
I can't tell whether the cacophony of noise that follows is for or against me, but I realize that I don't care all that much one way or another. I reach up with my free hand and brush my thoroughly wind-swept hair out of my eyes, and smile brightly. My eyes sweep the crowds, looking for a familiar face, but when no one pops up I turn to the Kage booth and shoot the old man a thumbs up.
Then when the announcer lets my arm go and stops excitedly slapping me on the back, I bend down and throw Sasuke's arm over my shoulder, yanking him to his feet and giving him a minute to regain his senses. Then we start walking.
The roar of the crowds follow us all the way back into the tunnel I emerged from earlier, and then dim all at once as we disappear into its depths. I don't actually know where I'm going, but I figure we'll either find our way out eventually or stumble upon someone with some clue as to where to go. We walk in silence but for the scuff of our sandals against the concrete, atmosphere heavy. Then, shockingly, Sasuke breaks the silence.
"I underestimated you," he says quietly.
I'm sorry.
I grimace. "I overreacted."
Me too.
We walk along for a few more minutes, not quite as tense anymore, and then I nudge him with my shoulder. He cocks an eyebrow at me, and I give him my best glare.
"So you thought it'd be cool to kill your best friend, huh?"
He snorts. "Only in my dreams. Itachi taught me how to dispel the technique on a dime; the plan was to steer you into a place where you couldn't move around, scorch you a little, and then finish you off before the chakra exhaustion caught up to me." So that would explain why I was right above him when the flames cleared. Still-
"That's another thing," I say, squinting through the darkness of the sudden fork in the tunnel. "How did you even pull that thing off? I can see you throwing out a dragon or two for a couple seconds each, but that thing just kept going."
"Soldier pills," he says, a tired little smirk on his lips.
I make a disgusted noise low in my throat. "Fucking Itachi."
"Yeah."
...
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