Chapter 13: Kabuto [Rewrite]

'Ami Hyuga vs Kabuto Yakushi'

"Fuck." I mutter to myself when my name matches to fight the spy, but Neji hears it. He gives me a long look, sending several messages to my eyes. 'don't worry', 'do your best', 'you're strong', 'why are you worried', 'are you ok', and many more passed from him to me. I just gave him a short, determined nod, and went downstairs. After Lee and Guy cheered for me loudly, Kiba and Shikamaru both gave a smirk to me. They have complete confidence in me. Naruto however, glared at me in hatred. I ignored it, he'll change his tune in a month.

I think in my head about everything I know about Kabuto. He's a gifted medical ninja, he fights with chakra scalpels from his palms that target muscles, he's extremely intelligent, he's deceptive, he's a master spy. I try to think about advantages I could have against him. He's a close combat fighter, much like a Hyuga. If we go hand to hand, we will almost neutralize each other. It would come down to a test of speed, and unfortunately, reach. He's older and taller than me, with longer limbs that would give him an advantage. Luckily, I have something that can compensate for that. I take out my fan scroll and discretely summon them as I go down the steps. I tuck the fans into my sleeves to have as a secret weapon. I think my only other main advantage is that Kabuto is a spy and not a particularly gifted taijutsu fighter. He is supposed to be a genin level right now. If he fights too hard, he will out himself potentially. This again makes me wonder why he stayed in the preliminaries this time instead of forfeiting. 

"I get to fight one of the famous Hyuga Twins, I feel honored. The rumors mentioned your great skill, but not your beauty. I will have to add that to my information cards." Kabuto says with a smirk as he takes a fighting stance. 

"Yes, I would hate for you to have failed at gathering information." I taunt darkly, taking my stance.

"Let the match, begin!" Hayate calls out and then jumps back. I activate my eyes, and see that Kabuto is channeling his chakra into his hands, similar to how I do into my arrows. The main difference is that he's channeling medical ninjutsu chakra, which when used offensively, is destructive on a cellular level. I know I can't let him hit me, it will cut much deeper and with more precision that a regular knife.

He lunges first towards me, and I'm already prepared. For now, I want to use my speed, and try to cut off his chakra blades and reduce that risk. I know I can't use my bow here due to the confined fighting room, but I would like to wait on the fans if possible. When he gets to me, I find I can block his hits well enough with my speed even though he is strong. He is certainly fast though, but after a year of training with Team Guy, his speed means nothing to me. As I'm blocking, I'm using the Gentle Fist to subtly block his chakra points that I can reach through his solid defense, just like Neji did to Hinata earlier. Kabuto is smart though, I'm sure he's prepared for that.

He jumps back suddenly, gaining distance. "Ah yes, blocking my chakra points, just like your brother did earlier. That's a dangerous technique, I'll have to be careful." Kabuto says innocently with a chuckle, and I can see it worked and now one of his hands can't precisely control the chakra anymore. "I'll just have to keep some distance, no matter." He takes out multiple kunai, then launches them at me as he jumps around the room, trying to get to a blind spot. Not that I have one. I dodge his kunai easily, he is trying to throw me off by varying the speeds he throws them at. I can't figure it out though, I'm sure he's much stronger than this. He must still be acting as a genin and hiding his real skills right now.

"Trying to find a blind spot against a Hyuga?" I sneer at him, unperturbed by his weapons flying at me. "It's funny, you struck me as an intelligent person. Guess I was wrong." I take out my own kunai and launch two sets out. The first was to his current location behind a pillar, the second was to set up a trap behind him. Those ones wedge lightly into the wall, blending in with some cracks left from a previous battle, and have a string attached to them. When Kabuto jumps out to avoid my simple kunai attack, I chase and lead him to where he will get struck by my others. He's falling for it too easily, so I immediately think of a backup plan.

"A trap!" He says in shock when I launch the trap once he's in position. I tug hard on the strings, and send the shuriken aimed for him. He manages to jump up in time to evade the knives, but I was ready. I had thrown two additional knives, one to each side in case he went right or left, but I myself went up. I met him head on as he had no control in the air, and used the Gentle Fist technique on his unprotected body. I quickly got in six good hits, targeting his other arm's chakra network that I didn't get earlier, and an additional one to his neck to distort him. When we landed, he recovered quicker than I thought though, and he at lightning speed lodged an extra shuriken at me. I narrowly managed to avoid it hitting my eye, and watched as a few stray hairs got cut. I jumped up on top of the statue in the room analyzing my next move. He really is hiding his strength right now, but that reaction with the knife was probably closer to his real skills. And he's aiming for my eyes now, my greatest asset.

"Ami!" I hear Neji, Lee and Guy shout out in worry as a dribble of blood falls down my cheek. I ignore it, planning my next move.

"Sorry to ruin such a pretty face, but you left me no choice." Kabuto taunts me, readying another attack. "You'll find these ones are much harder to avoid than the last ones." He launches a whole set of the new kunai, significantly faster than the previous attempts he made. So he was just toying with me. I dodge them, barely, by using a Rotation and creating a complete dome barrier around myself, sending his knives flying everywhere. I'm not getting anywhere just dodging him and playing defense, I need to go on my own offense. I look at his chakra network, noticing he used his medical ninjutsu again to reopen his chakra network. I have to disable it more this time than just his arms.

I go again into my fighting stance, and start my attack. "This again?" Kabuto scoffs as I attack him. Mid-way through, when he's effectively using his reach to avoid the bulk of my attacks, I take out my still closed fans into each hand. I channel my own chakra into them, but not the wind style. I'm using the fans as a source of extra reach for my arms. I watch his expression go again from cocky to worried as he tries to channel his chakra and can't anymore, because I've been successfully blocking his chakra points without him realizing. I keep attacking, using the fans to go into the 64 palm strike with deadly precision.

"Eight tri-grams, 64 palm strike. 2!" I call out, hitting him twice. "4! 8! 16! 32!." I take a breath in, increasing my speed even further. "64 Palm Strike!". As I finish the last hit, Kabuto flies back onto the ground, and I open my fans, prepared to send out a wind attack and make him keep his distance. I know he's not out yet, he's too strong for that to have finished him off. I watch as I focus on sending chakra into the fans for an attack, waiting to see if he will keep his cover, or if he will continue to attack. He's a wild card right now, I'm not sure if he's there on orders or if he's just bored and participated. He turns to look at me, his eyes going to the fans in my hands.

"Ami!" I hear Guy yell out. "Take them off. Show the boy the power of youth!" He strikes a nice guy pose. I smirk at him, that's an excellent plan.

"What? Take what off?" I hear Kabuto ask in confusion with a smirk. I dramatically take off my weights, first the ones hidden up my sleeves, and hold them in my hands as I grab my leg ones. "Weights? I don't think a few weights will change much, beautiful." He sneers at me, recovering almost fully from my hits. He must have used his medical skills.

"Didn't anyone tell you it's not polite to talk about a girl's weight?" I say haughtily with a sneer, holding the weights to either side of me. I let them drop from my hands, but rather than revel in his shocked expression at the craters they make, I immediately go on the offensive, using the weights as my distraction. I get behind him instantly, landing hit after hit on his organs. I'm aiming for kill shots on him at this point, not holding back. I recognize the threat he actually is. He responds after a moment, twisting his body to avoid the vital hits. I see a momentary look of fear in his eyes before he masks it.

"You're really going all out in this, aren't you? That speed and those eyes, I really can't hide from you. I'm not much of a fighter, anyway." He admits, but I see his hand moving to grab something. "I wonder, your brother says the main family looks down on you for your blood, but will this branch family of yours even accept a blind Hyuga?" He taunts as he takes a longer, deadlier looking kunai and aims right at my eyes. I react just in time, my fan in my hand ever since I saw him reaching for something. I managed to knock the knife off course, but it still lightly grazed my cheek. It stung immensely, the blade on it was finer than a regular kunai, and much sharper.

"Fans? I see. You're a wind user." He coughs up a bit of blood from my attack. I hear him mutter to himself. He glances up to the stands just barely, but I catch it. He is looking at Orochimaru. That can't be good. "I give up!" He calls out suddenly.

"Coward!" I call out angrily, starting to see red. I shouldn't have given him a chance. I should have just kept attacking him, full force from the start. He was just looking for a wind user, and I just showed him the answer. My rage must have taken over for a moment, because the next thing I know, Hayate is restraining me from behind and my team are calling my name from the stands. I had tried to attack him again just now without realizing it.

"The match is over. Return to your team." Hayate orders me. I don't resist his hold at all. I still have my eyes activated, and use them to secretly look up at Orochimaru. He is leering at me intently from where he is disguised. Wind user... That's the last think Kabuto said before quitting. I think the Sannin just figured out who shot him in the forest. I get out of Hayate's hold when he releases me, and walk up the stairs to my brother and team. I think I just put a target on my back, one I will have to watch out for.

As I get up to the top, everyone is eyeing me cautiously. Naruto is glaring hard at me, and I can feel a speech coming on. Sure enough, before I get back to my team, he goes off.

"The match was over! You had already won, brutally! Why would you try to attack a man when he's down and given up!? I thought you were better than your brother, but you're no different! You're both cruel and look down on others!" Naruto yells at me as Neji makes his way to my side.

Neji goes to defend me, but I hold up my hand to stop him. "My actions were no more cruel than encouraging the gravely injured to fight in vain." I say coldly to him, referencing what he did to Hinata. "Your opinion of me does not matter. Strength is the only thing that matters in this world. Everything else is just a delusion for the weak. Where is your pride and honor? Like all true shinobi, Kabuto should have rather fight and died than quit while he still had a chance." I lean down and whisper into his ear, "Never wound a snake; kill it before it bites back." I stand back up and say at a normal volume, "Shinobi's are not the ones who always win, but the ones who always fight. He quit, he is no shinobi." I say with a shrug and walk back to my team. I know I was meaner than I usually am, but I have no sympathy for Kabuto, and took it out on Naruto just now. Neji takes out some medicine and cleans up my cheek gently as Lee and Guy praise my hard work. Guy retrieved my weights for me from where I dropped them and puts them back on me as Neji was still wrapping me up. I sigh at his enthusiasm, but I'm tired from chakra use and could have used the break.

~ Neji POV, During the fight ~

I watch as Ami starts her fight against this Kabuto guy. He doesn't seem like anything special, but something about him has her on edge. Her attacks are efficient, and she's not leaving room for openings at all. As she's fighting in our main fighting style, I can start to see her disadvantage against her opponent.

"Her reach, it is not enough to land direct blows against her opponent. He fights with medical ninjutsu, so she must both evade his hands but also try to land her strikes on him. They are almost a balance of each other. She is faster, but he has more reach." Kakashi tells the noisy idiots standing around.

"Ha!" Guy laughs out proudly, "This isn't even close to her speed. I wonder if she will do it...." He trails off as we watch her dodging attacks. She sets up one of her clever traps, and gets in a bunch of good, solid hits. I activate my eyes, and see that she has blocked off the chakra flow to his arm. She's really going in for the kill against this guy.

"Lured her prey into a trap and then attacked. That's Ami alright." I hear her friend Shikamaru say. This must be the one she plays Shogi with.

"That was amazing, she's so fast and strong." Sakura says begrudgingly while watching. She gasps as a kunai flies at Ami's face. Ami jumps up onto the statue, analyzing. Her speed has been good, but it's being almost matched by this Kabuto guy.

"Ami! Take them off!" Guy yells obnoxiously and I sigh. He couldn't have found a better way to phrase that? I watch my sister smirk and dramatically take her weights off. Last I checked, she was carrying almost an extra 150 kilograms added to her in those weights. I thought she would taunt more when she dropped them, but she just used them as a distraction to get behind him. She landed even more hits to this guy, cutting off the flow to his other arm. I checked him again, and gasp at what I see.

"He's healing. Rapidly. Her earlier strikes should still be in effect, she targeted his chakra flow in his arms, but they're already healing and opening again. What is this guy?" I say to my team.

"He seems to be a medical ninja, maybe this is a clan move. Rapid healing though, that is advanced for a genin." Guy muses out loud. The more I watch, the more something seems off about this guy. He barely finished on the last day, and both his teammates were already defeated easily. He seems to not have anything special about him, yet even now, he's getting close to matching Ami's speed again. It's like he was toying with her earlier, but it's odd, it seems like she knew it too. Kabuto takes out a blade suddenly, it's different than the others, and he throws it at her face. It almost hits her in the eye if she didn't block with her fan.

"Ami!" I call out, hearing Lee and Sensei do so as well. Her face it cut, I can see it bleeding. I can feel my own rage growing, a no class genin would never have been able to cut my sister's face, she's way too strong for that.

"I can't believe she got hit." Lee says to the others.

"What's so surprising about that? Everyone gets hit." Naruto mumbles out.

"Not Ami. I told you earlier that the strongest two genin are on my team. Ami is a fierce shinobi, she is also a true genius. Her speed and mind together with her skills make her near impossible to hit." Lee says. I can hear him hesitate, probably wondering the same thing as me. Why isn't she using her fans? She obviously has them out. I can understand not using the bow, the room is so small, but why limit herself when she trained so hard.

She answers that for us, because she soon uses the closed fans to fight with the Gentle Fist technique. She and I have been working hard on creating this style for her, which is perfect for this scenario. It extends her reach further, and since the fans channel chakra, she can use it to block chakra ports.

"Wow! Those hits are amazing, how is she doing that? It didn't work before." Sakura asks, and I see Kankuro looking at my sister strangely.

"She is using a tool to extend her reach. She compensated creatively for the difference in reach. Truly, a genius to think of using her weapons like that." Guy says with pride. We had been keeping this one a secret, in case she had to fight Lee in the exams.

"Are those fans?" Kankuro asks when Ami opens them, preparing to use her wind attack. I see him glance to his teammate who is glaring down at my sister from her place. They both are wind users, with fans. The Sand girl is just a lot more obvious about her techniques while Ami aims for subtlety.

"Yes, she earned them." I say shortly. I watch my sister getting madder and madder, and then threaten Kabuto who is laying on the ground and just randomly quit. I don't know what has come over her, she's usually much calmer than this. I also don't get why that guy quit, but maybe his healing stopped working. I look and see that her last hits did a lot more damage to him than the first ones.

"Ami!" I call out in shock as she goes to attack Kabuto after he already gave up. She'll get disqualified. The proctor has her restrained, and at least she isn't resisting at all, just glaring at Kabuto.

"She tried to attack him after the fight. That's so mean! She already won." Sakura says obstinately. "Kabuto was such a nice guy, I hope he'll be ok, he looks pretty messed up. She didn't hold back at all."

"I'm sure he'll be fine Sakura." I hear Kakashi say dismissively. He seemed very curious during the fight, but I can't tell if he was watching Ami or the Kabuto guy.

"It is not like Ami to be like this. She is serious, yes, but usually much calmer than this. I wonder what made her so mad." Lee speculates, and I see her two other friends nodding in agreement. Sensei is looking at me, silently asking if I know why. I shake my head, I do not.

I hear the Naruto idiot yelling at my sister as she walks back up. I go to join her side, getting irritated that this loser thinks he can talk to her. She shuts him up coldly, still mad from the previous fight. I take her back to our area and just focus on cleaning her cut while she calms down.

~ Ami POV ~

"Lee, use your maximum speed on this guy. He's not normal, and seems a little unhinged. Prove yourself out there, but don't take it too far. And don't let his sand wrap around you." I warn Lee as he is called to his fight against Gaara. This will be awful to watch, and I hope he heeds my warning.

The fight goes on much the same as in the show. He even goes to the same statue I did earlier and drops his weights dramatically, just like I did. He wears significantly heavier weights than I do, his impact craters were insane. His speed improves to its maximum after he took them off. He and I train together once a week without our weights on, just to make sure we are comfortable moving at those advanced speeds. He surpassed me months ago in sheer speed once I stopped increasing my weights and he kept building his up. He was so proud the first time he won a race against me. I always encourage his weight training, I know it will make him one of the strongest shinobi if he continues the way he is. Therefore, I keep the weights too, that way he can still have a competition. He doesn't win all our races, and I am agile and more crafty than he is.

"Lee! Get out of there!" I call out urgently when I see Lee's arm and leg getting wrapped with sand. He's been doing so well the whole fight, even causing the One Tail to appear from Gaara. But the awful moment is about to happen, and there nothing that can stop it. Gaara uses the sand to crush his arm and leg as he struggles to break free of it. I watch the blood pouring into the sand, and turn my head away for a moment. I have to remind myself that he will be fine later, after the surgery, but still, this is awful to watch. Neji subtly takes my hand and holds it. I can feel him shaking as well. Either out of fear of Gaara, or concern for Lee, I don't know. It's probably a combination of both, not that he would ever verbally admit to either. I grip his hand tightly as we watch Lee still try to continue the fight.

I sigh in relief the moment Sensei stops the match for Lee. Once he gets Gaara to admit the match is over, Neji and I go down to check on Lee.

"He's unconscious." Neji says when we get there. We watch as the medics place him gently onto a gurney. One of them pulls Guy away from Lee for a moment. I watch Sensei's face crumble.

"He'll never be able to be a shinobi again." The medic says loud enough for us to hear. Naruto joined at some point too, concerned for his new friend. When Naruto starts spouting off how Lee never gave up, Kakashi comes and restrains him, calming him down and speaking quietly to him.

After making sure that Lee was secured on his gurney safely and in good hands, I slowly head back up with Neji to the raised deck. I look back, noticing Sensei hasn't left from where he stood yet. Kakashi says something to him, and Sensei slowly turns and joins us back up the stairs.

"He'll be ok." I say gently to him, "Those medics clearly have never met Lee before. He's too stubborn to have someone tell him something is impossible."

That seems to spark something in Sensei again, because he nods firmly, and we go to watch the last match. It's Choji versus Dosu. The match is over almost immediately, with Dosu winning using his sound attack.

Hayate calls all the victorious genin down to stand in the front, so Neji and I walk down together with Shikamaru who was standing close to us. I look around, it's the same winners from the story, plus myself and Shirotsu Aburame. Sasuke is still missing, but he's resting off somewhere from getting his curse sealed. I wonder if Kabuto will still try to kill him now. I did injure him greatly on my last attack, I'm curious how fast he could bounce back from that.

The Hokage gives us another speech and tells us how we have one month before the finals. Anko comes around with a box, and we all draw lots for the final tournament. There's an odd number currently, but that will change with Dosu's death later.

"Alright, memorize this. This is your matchup for the finals. Since there is an odd number of you, there will be an extra match. Also, due to how many of you there are, the final match will be a three way fight." Hayate tells us. I look at my match up, I have Shirotsu in the fourth match. Bugs, not something I'm looking forward to at all. I turn to Neji and see him smirking at Naruto, who's glaring back at him. Oh Neji, I love you dear brother, but this is a fight I won't interfere with at all. It needs to happen, for you and for him.

Team Guy leaves and heads straight to the hospital to check on Lee. We stay around until he finally wakes up. He did not take the news well, and he was having a moment with Sensei. Neji and I left gracefully, leaving behind the vase of flowers we picked up on the way.

"Today was intense." I say when my twin and I finally get home after five days away. "I call first bath!" I call out tiredly. Neji just nods slowly, going to the kitchen to get food. After I'm finally clean, I make myself a small plate of a food and sit in the living room as Neji bathes. He eventually joins me, a cup of Jasmine tea for both of us.

"So we have a month. I'll fight either the freak who hurt Lee or the last Uchiha. You're friends with him, sister, but I'm going to destroy him if we fight. Fair warning." He says tiredly as we sip our tea.

"Don't disregard your first fight so quickly. He's an idiot, sure, but he still managed to make it this far somehow. Focus on that fight too." I warn gently. "I'm sure going to focus on this Aburame guy. Ugh, I have a month to learn how to fight bugs. I hate them, so creepy. I'll have to think of a way to finish that match quickly, to limit the amount of bugs crawling around. I hope he won't feel too bad when I kill them all." I say with a shiver.

"We can ask Sensei in the morning for training for us. Maybe he knows someone who can help you, teach you a better defense against a bug user. I'm sure his answer will just be 'defeat them all'." He pauses for a moment, "Ami, what happened during your match with Kabuto? What had you so on edge from the start? What made you snap at the end?"

"Surely you spotted there was something off about that guy." I look him in the eye. "He gave me massive bad vibes. He just seemed like he was toying with me. I wonder why he gave up, he wasn't exactly losing. He probably could have kept healing himself. He's dangerous, whoever he is. I was almost ready to use my special wind Rotation, but I couldn't with you and everyone so close. I already hated having to bring out the fans, but they saved my eye." I add while placing a hand over my eye I almost lost. I touch instead the small wound I received in its place. "Think it will scar?"

He takes another look at it, then goes to get our special Hyuga clan medicine. "No, it should be fine." He says, wiping some on my cut. I could feel it sealing up a little. "It was annoying how he kept flirting with you though." He adds bitterly and I chuckle.

"I agree. He's like, 20, we're not even 14 yet. It was gross." I say in disgust. Technically I'm not 14 and his age didn't gross me out, but flirting did since he's a bad guy.

"Let's get some sleep. I'm sure Sensei will be here first thing in the morning." Neji says with a sigh, and we both head to bed. This really has been an exhausting week, and I'm so thankful to be in my own bed again. I failed to stop Orochimaru, but he is a Sannin so there really wasn't much chance. Instead, I may have made myself a target. Oh well, I tried to save my friend, that's what matters. I think Death would be proud I am making the effort.