Then all at once the Sharingan and scowl and the fury disappear. Fugaku looks upon his son stonily, and when he speaks his voice is cold as ice. "Leave."
Sasuke stands up and walks out of the room without another word.
...
I spend all of two seconds debating between being polite and staying for the rest of the meal, and leaving. I set my chopsticks down and stand up. Sakura looks up at me like a deer caught in a katon jutsu, and I tilt my head towards the hallway.
"C'mon."
The last thing I hear from Sasuke's family as we leave the room is Mikoto's anguished moan.
"I was so looking forward to those chocolates, too."
We find Sasuke sitting up on the Yondaime's great stone head, staring down at Konoha. Sakura opens her mouth, but I shake my head. He'll need time to cool down first. I take a seat to his right, and Sakura takes one to his left. For a while we all just look at Konoha in silence.
"I hate him," he finally says, voice dull. "No matter what I do, Itachi always did it better. No matter what I say, Itachi said it better. Everything Itachi has ever done is better. I don't provide anything for him. I don't need to exist. To him, I'm nothing."
I sigh. "No, you're just a disappointment." He looks sharply at me, but I keep my eyes on the Shodai's trees, shifting in the wind. "He's a prick, and he doesn't understand that you can't just wake up in the morning and be a prodigy like your brother." That had been clear as soon as dinner had started.
"But you know what?" I ask softly. "Fuck him. Fuck him and fuck what he thinks. We're going to show him and your whole damn clan that you're as good as Itachi ever was, starting with the Chunin Exams. We're all going to get promoted, lead missions, and get promoted again. We'll never give up, no matter how long it takes, and when the day comes that you surpass Itachi once and for all, you're going to rub your dad's face in it."
I turn, see his stunned expression, and grin. "You don't have to prove to him that you deserve to exist, Sasuke. You just have to prove him wrong."
"I-" He looks down, at his clenched hands. "I don't know if I can."
Sakura places a hand on his shoulder. "You can."
I clap him on the back. "We'll help you."
...
"Alright, break for lunch!" Hatake calls. Sakura, Sasuke, and I all fall to the ground as one, caught in the middle of preparing various techniques but far too tired to care. Hatake walks around between the three of us, distributing bento boxes he'd collected earlier this morning.
Since he'd started us back on his god awful bell test, the qualifications had changed from actually getting the bells to working well together in our attempts.
On days like this, when we pass inspection, it makes these daily thrashings bearable. On days like yesterday, though, I hate it just as much as the real thing. Even more so, really, because it's possible to "pass" this test without Hatake letting us. It makes the failure sting twice as bad.
Hatake hands me my lunch, snapping me from my surly thoughts, and I waste no time digging in. Rice balls, cooked fish, and soy sauce. It's simple, but it doesn't have to be much for me to happily devour it after the workout I just went through.
I glance around the training ground a couple minutes later, bento thoroughly ravaged, and spot my teammates sitting at separate points away from me. A Hatake waits by each of them, waiting for them to finish their meals. Individual training, then. Thank god.
I crane my head around, looking for my Hatake, and find him lounging on a branch above me, book in hand. A few seconds pass and he doesn't make any move to come down. Looks like it's just the usual today.
I move my empty bento box to the side, shifting into a more comfortable position on the ground. Then I begin to form the Great Breakthrough in my throat.
Since I first used it against that ANBU over a week ago, Hatake has been drilling me in preparing it faster, on the move, and above all, more reliably. There will be a limit to how fast I can spin the loop, he tells me, and thus a limit to how powerful I can make the jutsu, but he doesn't think I've hit that barrier yet.
So I spin the loop faster, and I grasp for that limit.
"Actually, we're going to be working on something different today."
I crack an eye open, finding my Hatake now standing in front of me, and snort. The loop dissipates in my throat, forcing a little cough out of me.
This time my curiosity outweighs my annoyance. This time. "Yeah? New jutsu?"
"Sort of!" He pulls a scroll from a pocket in his flak jacket, and in a puff of chakra smoke a tanto appears in his hand. "But first, I'm going to teach you how to use that sword of yours."
"Huh?" I furrow my brow. I mean, I know there are almost as many Kenjutsu fighting styles floating around as Taijutsu styles, but they're never struck me as being worth the effort. "Why not another Ninjutsu? It's not like you can teach me a whole new fighting style before the exams. I'm just now getting a hang of the Dodging Fist."
"Dancing Fist."
"Whatever."
"I'm teaching you this for the same reasons I'm teaching you the Dancing Fist," he says. "A sword is a great weapon for you due to your need to keep opponents away. But just like your Taijutsu, if your Kenjutsu doesn't complement your skillset, you'll only be putting yourself at a further disadvantage." He peers at me. "You know why I'm teaching you the Dancing Fist, right, Naruto?"
"Yeah, yeah." I roll my eyes. "It's too dangerous for me to trade punches with people because if I screw up my chakra application or their fighting style involves fire somehow, I'm screwed."
"Exactly. There's another reason, too." He crouches down, looking at me levelly. "Brawling, in Taijutsu and Kenjutsu both, is the most common fighting style by far. There isn't any other that can be picked up on instincts alone, from day one, and work as well as it does. There are S-ranked shinobi that never bother with sophisticated styles for their whole lives, and it makes them no less unstoppable.
"For Ninjutsu and Genjutsu specialists, this is fine. They're never going to be in a close quarters situation if they can help it, and their instincts as shinobi are generally enough to get them out of such scenarios. It's when you begin to lean towards Taijutsu and Kenjutsu that it becomes an issue. Know why?" I shake my head, and he stands up, gesturing for me to do the same.
He holds his sword out in front of him, and I draw my own. He curls his free hand, calling for me to make the first move, and after a moment's hesitation I charge. Our blades clash with a sharp clang, and I spin, slashing at his leg. He parries, drifting out of the way of my next cut, and then ducking under my overhead slash.
I lunge forward, stabbing at his arm, and in a flurry of motion he darts inside of my guard, twisting around so that my own sword arm is locked between his body and sword. One sharp jerk later, and my sword is sent flying out of my hands.
I stumble back, panting, and he sticks his tanto in the ground, leaning on the handle. "Brawling, relying on your instincts and nothing else, is an issue," he repeats. "Because due to its popularity, every single fighting style in existence has a counter for it."
He nods his head at my discarded sword. "Pick that up. You're correct that you won't be able to get a true grasp on this style before we have to leave for the exams, but you'll know enough that using your sword against other close combat specialists won't put you at a disadvantage." He smiles. "Or if you want, I can confiscate it until after you're done competing so you don't have to suffer the temptation."
I pick up my sword.
...
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