AND BACK AGAIN [ NARUTO ]

[ 19 ] fist bump

previously. . .

"No offense, Sasuke, but you've never been good with words." Naruto held up his fist. "I've only ever been able to get through to you one way."

Sasuke eyed him. "What's that?"

Naruto smirked. "We fight, Sasuke. It's just what we do; what Sakura-chan calls our 'friendship dynamic.' I want to help you understand, but I think I can do it best if we trade blows."

///\

Sasuke knew who he was fighting.

He did. He knew he did.

But this incredible, raw power was nothing he'd seen in Naruto before.

One second he was grinning and standing perfectly still across the training field. His carefree cockiness irritated Sasuke; he should be serious when facing him. It was some test of strength, wasn't it? Why had Sasuke even agreed to this in the first place?

Naruto didn't exactly give room to refuse.

Sasuke got his wish, though, when the cheeriness dropped from the blond's face and he disappeared in a flash of yellow. Sasuke dropped into a firmer stance, opening his senses to any sign of Naruto's chakra signature.

It flared before he could even prepare himself, and the familiar whirring of the rasengan claimed his ears. Sasuke cursed as the rotating chakra neared his face before he dodged. Rasengan? Already?

The rasengan didn't fizzle out after one attempt, though. When Naruto became visible again there was a second jutsu spinning dangerously in his other hand, and he lunged at his young friend. Sasuke let his hands work with muscle memory, sharingan whirring to life. He was about to release a katon jutsu when he realized the Naruto charging him was only a clone.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" Sasuke watched the fire stream from his mouth and the clone expel before he whipped around to catch the original.

The last of the fire licked the ground. Naruto was nowhere to be seen.

Above--!

He could redirect Naruto's hand and follow up with chidori, if that wasn't too much, and the rasengan would miss its mark. . .

Sasuke took a single glance up and discarded any remaining thoughts of the plan.

It's massive!

He pushed an extreme amount of chakra into his legs and evaded the impossibly large jutsu. The ground beneath his feet glowed an eerie blue. Sasuke met the trees just as it collided and the earth shook. He easily dodged flying debris before, within a second, Naruto was in front of him again.

Sasuke had a kunai in his hand to counter his. They engaged in a heated taijutsu battle, one arm fending off the other's, one kunai clashing against another. Naruto wasn't giving him a moment to think, to devise a strategy and pick apart a weakness--

Weakness? Does he even have one?

Sasuke growled at the thought, deflecting a kunai away from his face. They'd barely been at it for five minutes! He still had plenty of time to analyze his opponent.

Curiosity struck him then--an image of this older Naruto glowing with chakra surfaced in his mind. Maybe he could draw it out of him. It was a perfect opportunity to learn more about it; and, on that note, about what had possessed Naruto during the chuunin exams.