Lee disappeared in a blur and appeared in front of Gaara who was shocked at how fast his opponent was.
Sand suddenly shot out of the gourd on its own as it blocked Lee's roundhouse kick. Lee quickly pulled his leg back, not wanting it to be grabbed by the sand.
The wave sand then rushed towards Lee, attempted to grab him. Lee did a backflip, dodging the wave of sand and landing away from Gaara.
Lee rushed and appeared on Gaara's right, attempting to punch him with his left fist. His punch was blocked by a walk of sand that appeared between him and Gaara. Lee quickly leaped back and looked at Gaara.
'He's not moving an inch. So his specialty is using range attacks with his sand. He wants to capture me, if he does what comes next?' Lee asked himself.
Kankuro smirked, noticing Lee's expression. 'All physical attacks are useless against him. Regardless of Gaara's will, the sand becomes a shield and protects him, even from the things he's unaware of.' Kankuro thought.
With a small wave of his right hand, Gaara created bunch of sand shuriken and sand swords. He sent them all flying at Lee who started dodging them all.
Lee jumped onto the statue in the arena. The statue was hands holding the ram seal. Lee took in a deep breath in and breathed it out. He looked at Gaara who was staring at him, awaiting his next move.
"You're just like Naruto, so I can't hold back fighting someone like you." Lee whispered before he pulled up his sleeves on both hands a little.
There were a seal on each of Lee's hands. He tapped both of them with his finger. "Seal release!!!" He declared. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at Lee's words.
"Release? What's he releasing?" Kakashi wondered. He looked at Naruto who was smirking widely.
" He's releasing the resistance and weight seals on him." Naruto explained. Kakashi tilted his head.
"I thought that requires chakra to release it, Lee doesn't have chakra." Kakashi reminded Naruto whose smirk widened.
" Those seals are my creations. They only need Lee's fingerprints and a voice command from him to deactivate them." Naruto explained. Kakashi hummed and looked back at Lee who started taking off his orange leg warmers.
It revealed weights wrapped around his ankles. Lee grinned as he grabbed them before standing up, raising the weights high up to the air.
"Now with those out of the way, I can move easier!" Lee declared. Kankuro snorted while Temari smirked.
'Pft. There's no way taking off a little weight and releasing something will let him keep up with Gaara's sand.' Temari thought as Lee threw the weights to the ground.
*BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!*
The weights created massive craters on the ground, sending small debris flying everywhere. Gaara stared at it stoically.
Lee cracked his knuckles and smiled at Gaara before he disappeared in a blur. Satsuki widened her eyes as even her Two Tomoe Sharingan can't track where Lee is going now.
*POW!!!*
Gaara grunted and widened his eyes as Lee just appeared beside him and punched him in the face. Lee appeared in front of Gaara next and punched the redhead in the solar plexus, sending him staggering back.
Gaara scowled a little as he sent a violent wave of sand at Lee who leaped towards Gaara while performing a flip in the air.
"Haa!!!"
*BAAM!!!!*
Lee's heels slammed Gaara in the back of his head. His shoes slid down Gaara's face and cut open his cheek a little.
Lee landed on the ground while sliding back. He looked back at Gaara and raised an eyebrow as Gaara's face started cracking.
Pieces of sand crumbled from Gaara's face and fell onto the ground while Gaara had a psychotic expression on his face.
"So he's basically unscratched. Kid's gotta hit him harder next time." Asuma muttered. Kankuro was sweating while looking at Gaara.
'It's been a long time since I've seen that face on Gaara. So I was right, he's been losing control during the Chunin exams. The other Gaara is completely awake.' Kankuro thought to himself.
The sand around Gaara started to cover him, Gaara has activated the second part of his Absolute Defense. The Shield of Sand is the first part while the Armor of Sand being the second.
The Shield of Sand reacts to any attack against Gaara, even those Gaara himself is not aware of. When he's about to be physically harmed in any way, the Shield of Sand moves between him and the threat in order to block it. Though most often used in shielding Gaara from enemies, the sand also protects him from self-inflicted injury.
The Shield of Sand is automatic, requiring nothing from Gaara to use and thus meaning it can operate indefinitely. Because the shield is formed from sand that's been seeped in Gaara's chakra, it has a very fast response time, too fast for most enemies to overcome.
The second part of his absolute defense, the Armor of Sand defends him from attacks that bypass his Shield of Sand, maintaining it consumes a great deal of chakra. Furthermore, it does not activate automatically like the Shield of Sand does instead relying on Gaara to apply when needed, nor is it as resilient.
Wherever part of the Armour of Sand is struck, that section of it crumbles away. The sand itself also weighs Gaara down, slowing him and placing greater strain on his movements.
Despite all this, the Armour of Sand's combination with the Shield of Sand is an effective one, enabling Gaara to go years without the slightest injury.
'Amazing, with that sand covering his body my attacks right now are meaningless. I didn't think I would have to use it so soon.' Lee thought as he reached for something that's strapped behind him.
Lee took out a pair of steel nunchaku(nunchuks) and began swinging them around skillfully. He spun them so fast they could only see a blur around him.
"Haaa!!" Lee shouted as he rushed towards Gaara at a flashing speed. Gaara narrowed his eyes at Lee.
"Hurry up and come." Gaara muttered as he formed and sent a wave of sand shuriken at Lee who simply dodged them before appearing in front of Gaara.
*BAAM!!!*
"Ugh!" Gaara grunted as he was hit in the face by the steel nunchuks. Lee was relentless in his attacks and it did wonders, the armor of sand was starting to crumble under the force of Lee's devastating swings.
*BOOM!!!*
Gaara was hit un the head again by Lee's weapon. He stumbled back, looking a little dazed from the seemingly endless combo that he had no chance countering. Lee then started to spin.
While spinning, he delivered a series of kicks to Gaara while spinning faster in the process.
As he spun faster, he's lifted from the ground, allowing him to kick Gaara in different areas of his body. First a low kick, then a middle kick, then a high kick.
"Severe Leaf Hurricane!!!!"
*BOOOOOMMMM!!!!*
Lee finished it off with a heel drop that sent Gaara flying towards the arena wall.
*BOOM!!!*
Gaara crashed into it, creating a lot of smoke with his crash. Lee looked at the smoke as it cleared.
He widened his eyes. Gaara had escaped his sand armor before he crashed into the wall, leaving crumbling sand that was shaped and looked exactly like him.
Gaara appeared behind him while grinning like a maniac. "That's it! Make me feel ALIVE!!!" Gaara shouted. Lee widened his eyes as he started dodging sand left and right. He noticed that it seemed to be even faster than before.
He glanced at Gaara and saw him holding up a hand seal. 'He must be using his hands to increase the speed of his attacks!' Lee thought.
Lee blasted towards Gaara, bulldozing right past through the sand as his body slammed into Gaara. With his nunchuks, devastating punches and bone breaking kicks, Lee continued on until he smashed Gaara into the wall. Lee grinned a little when he heard Gaara gasp in pain as several cracks formed along the point of impact.
"Leaf Barrage!!!"
*BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!!!!*
Lee started punching Gaara in the solar relentlessly plexus. He ended his barrage of punches by slamming his fist into Gaara's face, sending the redhead flying away.
Gaara stayed there for a few seconds before getting up. "You…you hurt me!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!" He screamed as blood flowed out of his mouth.
Sand seemed to come at Lee from all directions. Lee widened his eyes while he was trying to find openings to escape the attack.
There were none at all, even with his speed he could not dodge them all, nor could he pick up enough momentum to plow through the sand.
And eventually one of the sand tendrils grabbed onto him. Gaara began grinning maniacally as he directed his sand to slam Lee into everything he could, walls, the floor, the ceiling, the railings. No one could keep out the wince as Lee was smashed into seemingly everything.
Naruto groaned as Gaara's sand threw him into the wall where he left a large crater. He coughed out some blood as he looked at the redhead.
Gaara was layering sand around his right arm. The right side of his teeth became jagged. His right arm became bigger and had dark blue markings all over it. The right eye of Gaara also transformed too, the sclerae of his eye is black, with yellow iris and pupil that each takes the shape of a black four-pointed star with four black dots around it.
This was a small part of Gaara's partial transformation into the Ichibi, Shukaku of the Sand also known as Monster Tanuki.
Gaara grinned maniacally at Lee who narrowed his eyes as he entered the beginning stance of the Strong Fist.
"USE IT LEE!!!!! USE THAT YOUTHFUL TECHNIQUE!!!"
To be continued...