Chapter 84: Konoha’s Green Beasts.

Lee ran in first. His speed and strength had increased over five times. His fist was aimed at Guy's jaw with everything the First Gate offered. Guy caught it. Lee threw a left. Guy caught that too. Both of Lee's fists were locked in Guy's grip. Lee yanked both arms downward and pulled Guy's upper body forward, then drove his knee up between their bodies into Guy's chin. Guy's head snapped up and his grip loosened. Lee ripped his fists free and threw a three-hit combination before Guy could reset.

Guy blocked the jab, slipped the cross, and caught the straight on his forearm. His counter was a straight kick to Lee's chest that sent him sliding backward through the dirt.

Lee's feet carved trenches in the ground as he skidded. He stopped himself and came right back in.

Low kick to Guy's lead leg. Guy checked it shin-to-shin. Mid kick to Guy's ribs. Guy caught the leg under his arm and trapped it against his body. Lee knew what came next when someone caught your leg. Either a throw or a strike while you were stuck. He didn't wait for either. He hopped on his standing leg and drove his free foot into Guy's wrist, breaking the grip, then used the same leg to sweep at Guy's ankles before his freed leg had even touched the ground.

Guy jumped the sweep. Lee was already straightening up and his fist caught Guy in the stomach while he was airborne. Guy folded around the punch and grabbed Lee's arm with both hands before he could pull it back. He used his momentum to smash Lee into the ground.

Lee ate the hit, planting his hands on the cratering ground, and mule-kicked backward. His feet caught Guy in the chest and sent him sliding away.

Both of them reset. Breathing harder now. Smiling wider. They opened the Second Gate at the same time.

The Second Gate re-energized their bodies. The fatigue from the First Gate vanished. Muscles that had been straining refilled with power. And the speed jumped again.

Guy charged. His fists blurred. Lee's guard absorbed the first three strikes. On the fourth Guy's straight right punched through Lee's crossed forearms and clipped his chin. Lee's head rocked sideways. Guy followed with a left hook to the body.

Lee took the hook and used the rotation it forced on his torso to spin into a back elbow. It caught Guy across the jaw. Guy's feet left the ground. Lee grabbed Guy's ankle before he could fly away and swung him overhead. Guy's body arced through the air and Lee slammed him into the earth like a hammer striking an anvil.

The ground split. A crater opened up with Guy at the center.

Guy kicked upward out of the crater before the dust settled. His foot caught Lee in the chest and this time Lee was the one flying. He crashed through two trees before catching himself against a third, his back cracking the bark.

Lee peeled himself off the trunk and spat wood from his mouth.

"Dynamic Entry!" Guy shouted as he came rocketing out of the dust cloud foot-first.

Lee watched the kick come. At the last moment he sidestepped and grabbed Guy's outstretched leg as it passed. He redirected Guy face-first into the tree Lee had just vacated. The trunk exploded into splinters.

"Dynamic Entry!" Lee shouted back, already in the air, both feet aimed at Guy's back while Guy was still buried in the shower of wood fragments.

Guy spun inside the wreckage and caught Lee's feet on crossed forearms. The impact drove Guy knee-deep into the earth. He shoved Lee's feet sideways and came up swinging. His fist grazed Lee's cheek as Lee leaned away. Lee grabbed the arm as it passed his face, pulled Guy forward off his center, and drove his knee into Guy's stomach. Guy took the hit and wrapped his arm around Lee's leg, trapping the knee against his body. Lee tried to pull free but Guy's grip was iron. Guy lifted Lee by the trapped leg and slammed him sideways into the ground.

Lee kicked Guy's elbow with his free foot, popping the grip loose, and rolled backward onto his feet.

"Third Gate!" Guy called.

"Third Gate!" Lee answered.

Their skin flushed red. Blood flow tripled. Veins stood out across their arms and necks and faces. Their pupils disappeared, leaving nothing but white eyes that tracked each other intensely.

Guy threw a punch that split the air. Lee ducked it and the displaced wind carved a line through the forest behind him, branches snapping as if a blade had passed through them. Lee countered with a kick that Guy blocked with his shin. The collision sent a shockwave through the ground that radiated outward in visible cracks.

They neared each other simultaneously and their fists met between them. The collision was the loudest sound the training ground had heard all day. Both of them skidded backward from the mutual impact.

Lee came back in with Leaf Hurricane. Three kicks in sequence, low, mid, high, each one faster than the last. Guy blocked low and mid but the high kick caught him clean across the temple. Guy's body spun from the impact and Lee followed with Leaf Rising Wind, the upward kick that launched opponents skyward.

Guy went up. Lee followed. Shadow of the Dancing Leaf.

Lee was behind Guy now, matching his trajectory in the air, and his bandages came unwinding from his forearms.

"Primary Lotus!"

The wrappings shot toward Guy's body and wound around his torso once. Twice. Lee grabbed hold and began the rotation. They spun together high above the training ground, Lee's grip tight, Guy's arms pinned, the ground rushing up to meet them.

Guy flexed. Every muscle in his body expanded at once and the bandages started to tear. Lee felt them tearing. He released before Guy broke free, kicked off Guy's back to launch himself higher, and let Guy plummet alone. Guy hit the ground and the crater that formed was twice the size of anything they'd made so far.

Lee came down feet-first from the height he'd gained, aiming for the crater. Guy rolled sideways and Lee's landing deepened the hole by another two feet.

They stood in the wreckage. Both breathing hard. Both bleeding from multiple places.

The two soon activated the Fourth Gate.

Their muscles began to tear. A ripping sensation in the fibers of their arms and legs and backs. Lee healed the damage as fast as it appeared. Guy's Body Supremacy Jutsu did the same, slower, as he hadn’t had enough time with the Body Supremacy Jutsu, but it was enough.

The speed was something else now. They moved fast enough that the air behind them couldn't fill the vacuum they left. Small thunderclaps followed their movements, miniature sonic booms marking where they'd been a quarter-second ago.

Lee closed the distance and threw a right straight. Guy parried and countered with a hook. Lee slipped the hook and countered the counter. Guy blocked that and threw his own. Back and forth, each exchange arriving faster than the last. On the fifth exchange Guy threw a straight punch. Lee didn't block it. He pushed Guy's wrist to the side, redirecting the punch past his body, and stepped into the opening. His uppercut caught Guy clean under the chin.

Guy's jaw clamped shut and his body lifted from the hit. He recovered mid-air and came down with both feet aimed at Lee's chest. Lee sped backward and Guy's stomp cratered the earth where he'd been standing. Lee reappeared at Guy's back and his knee crashed into Guy's spine. Something cracked. Guy grabbed Lee's leg before he could pull it back and tornado-threw him across the field.

Lee hit the ground, bounced, caught himself, and was already running back.

"Fifth Gate!"

"Fifth Gate!"

Guy came in with a combination that carried the force of a landslide. Every punch displaced enough air to flatten small structures. Lee weaved through them, his head and torso slipping strikes by centimeters, and when he found his opening he hit Guy with a right hand that lifted the Hokage off his feet and sent him skidding across the destroyed field.

Guy found his footing and charged back. They met in the middle and the collision of their fists generated a pressure wave that flattened everything within fifty meters. The remaining trees fell. The dirt became airborne. The crater they were standing in deepened by three feet from the force alone.

Lee ducked under Guy's hook and drove a kick into Guy's ribs. Guy felt two ribs crack and answered with an elbow to the top of Lee's skull. Lee's knees buckled. Guy followed with a rising knee to Lee's chin that straightened him back up and then a straight right that put Lee on his back.

Lee kicked up from the ground and his foot caught Guy under the chin. Guy's head snapped back. Lee pressed the opening, striking Guy from the left, then the right, then below, then behind, circling at Fifth Gate speed, each hit coming from a different angle before the last one had finished landing. Guy's body jerked with every impact, driven upward, and Lee's bandages began unwinding from his forearms as he struck, wrapping around Guy's torso between blows.

"Hidden Lotus!"

Guy's own fists began attacking. From inside Lee's barrage, Guy threw strikes of his own, matching Lee blow for blow, hitting from every angle Lee wasn't occupying. Lee's body jerked.

They were attempting to use the Reverse Lotus on each other.

The air above the training ground became a sphere of violence. Two green blurs striking each other from every conceivable direction, circling and colliding and separating and colliding again, each one trying to pummel the other into submission while being pummeled in return. Neither could complete the technique because every time one of them built momentum toward the finishing blow, the other interrupted it with a strike that reset the exchange.

Lee came in from above with a hammerfist. Guy met it with a rising knee. Guy spun into a heel kick from the left. Lee caught it on his forearm and answered with a straight right. Lee dove in from behind. Guy was already turning. Guy struck from below. Lee was already rising.

They both cocked back at the same time.

Two fists launched forward. Lee's right and Guy's right. They met in the exact center of the space between them.

The shockwave blew outward in every direction. The bandages shredded. The tangled wrappings ripped apart and scattered like confetti. Both of them rocketed away from the impact point in opposite directions, tumbling through the air, crashing through what was left of the tree line, skidding across torn earth until friction and gravity brought them to a stop.

Lee slid to a halt on his back fifty meters from where they'd collided. Guy slid to a halt on his back fifty meters in the other direction.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then they both sat up at the same time, looked at each other across a hundred meters of destroyed landscape, and grinned.

"You've far surpassed where I was at your age, Lee." Guy said it with pride and happiness.

"I am still not as strong as you are now, Guy-sensei." Lee could feel it.

"No. Not yet." Guy rolled his shoulders. "But you're getting close. And that makes me prouder more than you know."

Guy's aura shifted. The green of the Sixth Gate's chakra erupted from his body and the ground beneath him disintegrated. Water vapor in the atmosphere evaporated in a radius around him.

"Sixth Gate!" Guy roared.

Lee answered. His own Sixth Gate opened and his aura blazed to match. The two green fields of chakra collided between them and the pressure wave rolled outward across the training ground and into the forest beyond, snapping branches and scattering wildlife for hundreds of meters.

They vanished and what followed was not a spar. It was two of the strongest taijutsu users alive pushing each other to a place that neither of them could reach alone.

Lee threw a kick and the air ignited from the friction. Guy blocked it and threw one of his own that did the same. Flaming streaks followed their limbs with every exchange. The training ground burned. The craters filled with smoke.

Guy came in with a flurry. His fists moved so fast they caught fire from the sheer speed alone, each punch leaving a trail of flame in the air. Dozens of them, layered over each other, a cascade of burning strikes aimed at every part of Lee's body.

"Morning Peacock!"

The barrage hit Lee like a wall of fire as he countered with his own version.

"Morning Chicken!"

His rapidly flaming kicks vs Guy’s rapidly flaming punches. Fire met fire. The overlapping impacts created a continuous explosion between them that neither could see through, a wall of flame and concussive force that they were both feeding with every punch. The training ground cratered beneath them from the downward pressure. The smoke column rising from their position was visible from the village walls.

They broke apart. Both burning.

Guy planted his feet. He cocked his fist back and the air around it compressed. The compression was visible, a sphere of pressure building around his knuckles, growing denser with every millisecond. The sphere took shape. A form. The outline of something massive and avian, a peacock made of compressed flaming wind that screamed with contained energy.

Lee planted his feet opposite. His leg compressed the air the same way. His sphere built. But the shape that formed was different. The outline of a rooster, wings spread, beak open, made entirely of wind pressure that vibrated with killing force.

They cocked back. They stepped forward.

And then the ANBU were there.

Dozens of masked shinobi landing between the two green beasts, around them, behind them, forming a ninjutsu barrier around the area. The captain landed some distance away from the two of them.

"Hokage-sama! You are within four hundred meters of the village wall!"

Guy blinked. The compressed air construct around his fist wavered.

He looked past the ANBU captain. Past the barrier and the dozens of masked shinobi who had scrambled from their posts because the Hokage and his student had generated enough destructive force to threaten the rest of the village.

He had been about to fire a compressed air animal near it.

Guy's Sixth Gate closed. His aura dropped. His skin faded from red to its normal shade and the veins receded and his pupils returned. He stood in the center of a wasteland that had been a training ground twenty minutes ago, surrounded by ANBU who were looking at him in a way they haven’t before.

“That’s enough, Lee! We’ll stop here!” Guy rubbed the back of his head. "I may have gotten a little carried away." He chuckled.

Lee's Gate closed at the same time. His aura fell. He straightened up and looked around at the ANBU and the barriers and the craters and the fires still burning in what was left of the tree line, and then at Guy.

He was breathing hard. His body was covered in cuts and bruises that were already closing. His suit was destroyed from the chest down. And his face held pure, radiant, unshakeable joy.

"Guy-sensei."

"Yes, Lee?"

"Can we do this again sometime?"

"Anytime, Lee." Guy's face split into the widest grin it had worn in months. He stuck his thumb out. "Anytime."

“Not anytime. Unfortunately, Hokage-sama, it will be quite a long time before you have the free time to spend like this.” The ANBU captain shouted as he stared at the two of them standing in the smoking crater of what used to be a training ground, giving each other thumbs up, both of them bleeding and burned and grinning like idiots.

“Dang it…” Guy pouted.

[Taijutsu Proficiency +9,870 points!]

[Eight Gates Proficiency +6,430 points!]

[Chakra Control Proficiency +9,139 points!]

[Nunchaku Proficiency +7,395 points!]