Host: Rock Lee
Age: 12
Rank: Academy Student
Skills: Taijutsu B (3,515/100,000), Ninjutsu F (0.090/10), Genjutsu F (0.090/10), Shurikenjutsu C (750/10,000), Chakra Control B (1,532/100,000), Nunchaku Mastery C (1,134/10,000)
Unique Skills: None
Equipment: Nunchaku
Lee woke to the smell of the hospital for the second time in twelve hours.
Lee smiled at the ceiling. A crooked, split-lipped, blood-crusted smile that would have horrified most who saw it.
Today was graduation day.
The hospital room was familiar by this time. Lee had spent enough nights in Konoha Hospital over the past seven years that the place had become a kind of second home. Pale light crept through the blinds, painting gold stripes across the thin hospital blanket. Early. The sun had barely cleared the Hokage Monument, which meant the graduation ceremony was still hours away. Hours that Lee did not intend to waste.
He closed his eyes and turned his attention inward.
Chakra moved through his body: slowly, stubbornly, finding the paths that remained open and pooling at the blockages where Neji's Gentle Fist had sealed his tenketsu. Lee could feel each sealed point, the flow diverting around it, weakened but not stopped. His chakra network had been shut down more times than he could count over the past seven years, and every time, it had recovered. The tenketsu reopened. The flow returned. His body remembered wholeness and rebuilt itself toward it, given enough time and rest.
But Lee had chosen not to simply wait for recovery. Waiting was passive. Waiting was what someone who had accepted their limits would do.
Instead, he breathed in slowly, drawing the air deep into his lungs until his bruised ribs groaned with complaints, and began to guide his chakra into a jutsu that no instructor had taught him, that no textbook described, that existed only because a boy who couldn't shape chakra for jutsu had asked himself what else chakra might be good for.
Body Supremacy Jutsu.
The name was his own invention, coined during a hospital stay three years ago when a medical-nin had explained, for perhaps the hundredth time, how chakra interacted with the body's cells. Lee had listened attentively. The medical-nin spoke about cellular regeneration, about how healing jutsu accelerated natural processes by flooding damaged tissue with chakra. About how every cell in the human body contained chakra pathways so fine that even the Byakugan could barely perceive them.
Lee couldn't heal others but he could push chakra inward. Could feel it seeping into his muscles, his bones, his blood, nurturing each cell from the inside. The process was agonizingly slow. Six years of practice had given him enough sensitivity to feel the individual muscle fibers in his forearms, to sense the dense lattice of his bones, to detect the faint rhythm of his organs working in concert. But true mastery, the ability to strengthen and rebuild his body at the cellular level, required a degree of chakra refinement that still lay beyond his grasp.
He was close, though. Closer than he had ever been.
The warmth spread through his chest first, a gentle heat that softened the ache in his ribs and eased the throbbing of his sealed tenketsu. His chakra whispered to his damaged cells.
His awareness narrowed until the hospital room ceased to exist. There was only the interior landscape of his own body, a map drawn in sensation and energy flow. He could feel his heartbeat, lungs, he could feel the faintest tremor in his nervous system where sealed tenketsu disrupted the signals between brain and muscle.
Each session taught him something new. Each visit to his inner body expanded the territory he could perceive and influence. His eyesight had sharpened over the past year. His hearing had grown keener. His reaction speed, already honed by seven years of fighting Neji, had gained an edge that came from within rather than from repetition alone. His healing rate had accelerated to the point where injuries that once kept him bedridden for weeks now resolved in days.
Beneath the surface, something extraordinary was happening. Something that Lee understood, on an instinctive level that went deeper than conscious thought, would change everything if he could push it far enough.
[Chakra Control Proficiency +12 points!]
[Body Supremacy Jutsu Skill Gained!]
When the warmth finally faded and his chakra reserves dropped too low to continue, Lee opened his eyes and let the hospital room reassemble itself around him. The light through the blinds had shifted from gold to white, it was mid-morning.
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. The handle turned before Lee could respond, and a nurse entered carrying a tray of food that smelled strongly of rice porridge and weakly of fish. Behind her was Might Guy.
"Good morning!" Guy's voice was dialed down from its usual volume, hospital etiquette apparently being one of the few social conventions he observed. "How's the body feeling? Ready for a big day?"
"Guy-san!" Lee sat up too quickly and paid for it with a lance of pain through his spine. He gritted his teeth and pushed through it. "I feel incredible! Ready to graduate and begin my journey as a shinobi!"
The nurse set the tray down with a look that said she had heard many patients claim to feel incredible while held together by bandages and medication, and she believed none of them. She excused herself with a curt nod.
Guy pulled a chair to Lee's bedside and sat.
"Lee. I've spoken with the academy instructors about your graduation."
Lee's heart clenched. He kept his smile in place through force of will alone. "And?"
"The standard graduation requires students to demonstrate the Clone Jutsu, the Substitution Jutsu, and the Transformation Jutsu." Guy held up three fingers and folded them down one at a time. "You can't perform any of them."
Lee's smile stayed despite not being surprised at this outcome. It looks like he was going to have to go with his plan A after all.
"However." Guy's remaining finger uncurled and pointed directly at Lee's chest. "I have made a case to the Hokage that a student who can match Neji Hyuga in combat, who has demonstrated chakra control sufficient for the leaf concentration exercise, and whose taijutsu proficiency exceeds most genin, should not be denied graduation simply because his chakra cannot be shaped for three specific techniques."
Lee stopped breathing.
"The Hokage has agreed to allow an alternative assessment." Guy's grin returned in full force, all teeth and triumph and barely contained excitement. "You will demonstrate your taijutsu skills before a panel of instructors this afternoon. If they agree that your combat ability meets the standard expected of a graduating genin, you will receive your hitae-ate."
His eyes were very bright and very full, and his hands were shaking.
"Don't cry yet!" Guy stood abruptly, the chair scraping backward across the floor. "Save those tears for after you pass! There's nothing more youthful than tears of hard-earned victory!" He struck a pose. "Now eat your breakfast and get strong. You have a few hours to recover before the assessment."
Lee ate everything on the tray. The rice porridge was bland and the fish was overcooked but he could barely tell.
He spent the remaining hours alternating between light stretches and meditation. The stretches kept his muscles from stiffening further, coaxing mobility back into limbs that wanted nothing more than to lock down and rest. The meditation allowed him to replay his battle with Neji in his mind, searching for the paths to victory in each restart.
Hundreds of simulations of their fight played out in Lee's head, each one adjusting a single variable and following the chain of consequences. What if he had ducked instead of blocked? What if he had thrown the nunchaku earlier? What if he had targeted Neji's lead foot to limit his mobility? The scenarios branched and multiplied until Lee's thoughts blurred at the edges and sleep began pulling him under.
He didn't resist it. His body needed the rest, and in a few hours, he would need every scrap of strength it could give him.
The last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was simple: next time, he would win.
Neji woke screaming.
His bandaged hands flew to his chest before his eyes opened, fingers curling around fistfuls of blanket as his heart threw itself against his ribs. Sweat ran down his face in cold rivulets, soaking into the collar of his sleeping clothes, pooling in the hollow of his throat.
The voices followed him out of his nightmare.
"That failure of all people nearly beat you!"
"Maybe you were the true loser all along…"
"Can you really call that pathetic show a victory?"
"The difference between an elite and a loser is in their talent. What does this say when a loser can match up with an elite?"
Neji's teeth ground together hard enough to send a spike of pain through his jaw. "Shut up." He pressed his bandaged hands against his temples and felt the bones shift underneath, the fractures grinding against each other in a way that made his stomach lurch. "Shut up!"
"Are you afraid to face reality?"
"It's fun watching you fall apart upon discovering reality."
His own words, the ones he had used to grind Lee into the dirt year after year, turned inward like blades. And beneath all of them, quiet as a whisper in a storm, a voice that didn't sound like mockery at all.
"Maybe with a little hard work… we can overcome our fate like him…"
"No." Neji's breathing was ragged, his chest heaving with the effort of keeping himself together. He touched the seal on his forehead, the accursed mark forced upon him at the age of four. "Reality can't be changed so easily…"
The Hyuga compound was silent around him. Dawn light filtered through the shoji screens, painting pale rectangles across the tatami floor. His room was spare, almost monastic: a futon, a low desk, a rack for his training clothes, nothing else. No decorations. No personal touches. The room of someone who didn't expect to be comfortable in the space where he lived.
Neji looked down at his hands.
The bandages were fresh. Beneath them, his fingers were a ruin. Three fractures in the right hand. Two in the left. Swollen joints on six of his ten fingers, the knuckles puffy and discolored.
He dressed in his training clothes slowly since his hands could barely grip fabric. Wrapped his headband around his forehead, hiding the seal. Straightened his spine until the bruised ribs stopped complaining.
Neji stepped into the morning light and walked toward the academy.
He had increased his training regime twice as much before the fight. He would need to increase it again. Whatever Lee was doing to close the gap, Neji would outpace. Whatever advantage hard work provided, talent would exceed. The Gentle Fist of the Hyuga Clan was the strongest taijutsu style in the world, and Neji refused to let a boy with a birth defect prove otherwise.
He would ensure that Lee never rose above his station. Even if he had to train until his newly healed hands bled and broke again.
The academy courtyard was frantic with the energy of dozens of students gathered for hopefully the last time here. Parents lined the edges, some beaming with pride, others fidgeting with anxiety of people who understood exactly what their children were about to become.
Lee stood among them and tried to keep his hands from shaking. He had signed out of the hospital and was ready to do his utmost.
His classmates filed past in groups of three and four, entering the examination room with anxious faces and emerging minutes later with hitae-ate tied around their foreheads, their necks, their arms. The Clone Jutsu. The Substitution Jutsu. The Transformation Jutsu. Three techniques that Lee had attempted thousands of times and failed at every single one. Three techniques that the entire graduation system was built around.
Except that today, for one student, the system had bent.
"Rock Lee."
The instructor's voice called his name. Lee walked toward the examination room with his back straight and his smile fixed firmly in place. The examination room was bare. A desk at the far end where the three instructors sat. A row of hitae-ate laid out on the desk's surface. The instructors looked at Lee with expressions that ranged from skeptical to openly doubtful. His academy instructor, the one who had watched his fights with Neji for years, sat in the middle. His face was neutral.
Guy stood in the back corner of the room, arms folded across his chest. He didn't speak. His presence was enough of a statement.
"Rock Lee," the center instructor began. "You are aware that you have been granted an alternative assessment due to your inability to perform the three standard graduation techniques."
"Yes, sir."
"This assessment was approved by the Hokage himself and will consist of a taijutsu demonstration against a chunin-level opponent. If the panel judges your combat ability to be at or above the standard expected of a graduating genin, you will pass." The instructor paused. Let the weight of the words settle. "If not, you will return to the academy for additional training."
Lee's smile never wavered. "I understand, sir. I am ready."
The instructor on the left, a slim-figured guy with a forehead protector stood and moved to the center of the room. He rolled his neck, cracked his knuckles, and got into a fighting stance. His posture was loose and relaxed.
Lee would not miss this opportunity.
Lee bowed. Then he attacked.
He led with a feint with the right hand, drawing the instructor's guard high, followed by a sweeping kick aimed at the supporting leg. The chunin instructor saw it coming. He shifted his weight to absorb the kick and prepared a counter.
But Lee's kick changed direction mid-arc. Instead of sweeping low, his leg whipped upward, the shin driving toward the instructor's floating ribs. The instructor's eyes widened and his arms came down to block, absorbing the impact with a grunt that echoed in the small room. The force pushed him backward, his heels scraping across the floor.
Lee didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His body flowed from the kick into a spinning backfist that the instructor ducked, then a rising knee that the instructor sidestepped, then a rapid flow of punches that the instructor blocked with increasingly less comfort. The instructor retreated, giving ground against a twelve-year-old academy student who shouldn't have been able to threaten a chunin. His expression had changed. The relaxed confidence was gone.
Lee pressed the advantage. His nunchaku came out of his belt and the weapon spun dangerously, the spinning arcs creating a wall of whirling hardwood that forced the instructor to respect its range. Lee had spent a year mastering this weapon, practicing until the nunchaku moved as naturally as his own fists. He attacked from angles that conventional taijutsu didn't cover, the weapon's flexible shaft allowing strikes that bent around guards and slipped past defenses.
A sharp crack echoed through the room as Lee's nunchaku struck the instructor's forearm, hard enough to leave a welt, hard enough to make the man hiss through his teeth and reconsider his strategy entirely.
"Enough!"
The center instructor's voice cut through the room like a blade. Lee froze mid-strike, his nunchaku hovering centimeters from the chunin's temple. The instructor was breathing harder than he would have liked, his forearm already reddening where the weapon had connected.
The three instructors exchanged glances. Lee stood in the center of the room, chest heaving, body screaming from the exertion of fighting while injured, and watched the silent deliberation with his heart lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat.
The center instructor picked up a hitae-ate from the desk. Held it for a moment, as if testing its weight. Then he stood, walked around the desk, and held it out to Lee.
"You pass."
Lee's hands trembled as he took the headband. The metal plate was cool against his fingers, the Konoha leaf symbol engraved with the care and weight of everything it represented. Protection. Belonging. The right to stand among the village's shinobi and call himself one of them.
His vision blurred. The room swam. His throat closed around a sob: relief and triumph and gratitude and the raw, overwhelming recognition that the starting line he had been running toward for seven years was finally beneath his feet.
Lee tied the hitae-ate around his forehead.
He turned to Guy. The man in the green jumpsuit gave him a thumbs up and a bright smile.
Lee bowed. Deep, from the waist, with every ounce of respect and gratitude his body could express. "Thank you for giving me this chance, Guy-san."
"Don't thank me." Guy' told him. "You worked toward this yourself. This was all you, Lee. Now get out there and show the world what the splendid shinobi really looks like!"
Lee walked out of the examination room, into the courtyard, into the sunlight.
He had done it.
He had made it to the starting line.
...
The courtyard was emptying. Parents were collecting their newly graduated children, guiding them home for celebratory dinners and proud conversations about the future or to soothe them after a failure. Lee watched them go with a smile that carried no trace of envy, only a simple appreciation for the happiness of others. He had no parents waiting for him. Had never had parents waiting for him, as far as his memory stretched. The orphanage caretakers were kind enough but busy, and none of them would have thought to come to a graduation ceremony for one of their charges.
That was fine. Lee had grown accustomed to celebrating alone.
He was about to leave when a familiar figure stepped into his path.
Tenten stood with her hands on her hips. Her dark hair was pulled up into her signature twin buns, and her expression was caught somewhere between curiosity and disbelief.
"So you actually passed..." Her eyes dropped to the hitae-ate on Lee's forehead, then rose again to his face, lingering on the split lip and the bruise beneath his eye and the bandages peeking out from the collar of his shirt. "You look like you fought a bear."
"Just a Hyuga!" Lee's grin returned in full force. "Tenten, congratulations on your graduation!"
"You know my name?"
"Of course! I know all of my classmates names."
Tenten blinked. "Uh. Thanks." She recovered quickly, crossing her arms. "Don't get too excited but I heard we're on the same team."
Lee's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Really. You, me, and…" Her expression brightened. "Neji."
"This is awesome!" Lee cheered.
Tenten stared at him as if he was nuts. "You're joking. I thought you two hated each other. You're always fighting or close to it."
"That is exactly why it is awesome!" Lee pumped his fist. "A team should push each other to greater heights. With Neji-kun's talent and your weapons accuracy and my taijutsu, we will be an unstoppable force!"
"You are the weirdest boy I have ever met." Tenten shook her head. "Our sensei is supposed to meet us at Training Ground Three this afternoon. Try not to die before then."
She turned and walked away.
...
Training Ground Three was a flat expanse of packed earth bordered by forest on three sides and a shallow creek on the fourth. Training posts dotted the clearing at irregular intervals, their wooden surfaces scarred by thousands of strikes from students past. The afternoon sun hung high and hot, baking the ground until heat shimmers rose from the dirt like ghosts.
Lee arrived first. He stood by the central training post and practiced slow, careful forms with his nunchaku, testing the range of motion in his injured body. His sealed tenketsu had begun to reopen over the past few hours.
Neji arrived second.
Their eyes met across the clearing.
Lee smiled.
"Neji-kun! We are teammates!"
"I'm aware..." Neji's voice could have frozen water. He chose a training post on the opposite side of the clearing and began stretching.
Tenten arrived third, a ninja tool pouch holster strapped to her thigh. She took one look at the distance between Lee and Neji, at Lee's beaming smile and Neji's glacial indifference, and sighed as someone who could already see the shape of her future and was not entirely pleased with it.
"Great," she muttered, settling into a spot equidistant between them like a mediator at a dispute. "This is going to be perfect."
They waited. The sun crawled across the sky. Minutes passed. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Lee used the time to stretch, then to do push-ups, then to practice against imaginary opponents. Tenten cleaned her nails and checked her tools. Neji stood still and radiated displeasure.
A green blur dropped from the treeline.
Might Guy landed in the center of the training ground.
"Hello, my adorable students!" His voice rolled across the training ground like thunder wrapped in sunshine. "I am Konoha's Sublime Blue Beast of Prey, Might Guy, and from this day forward, I am your jonin instructor!"
Tenten's eye twitched. Lee's smile widened until it threatened to consume his entire face. Neji's expression remained exactly the same, which, given the circumstances, was an achievement in itself.
"Before we begin, let's get to know each other. Tell me your goals, your dreams, the ambitions that make your hearts burn with the fire of youth!" Guy asked. "I'll start. My name is Might Guy! My goal is to prove that hard work and passion can overcome any obstacle, and to raise a team of splendid ninja who will carry the will of fire into the next generation! My hobbies are repeated side-steps and hitting focus mitts! Now you!" He pointed at Neji. "The Hyuuga!"
"I'd rather not say." Neji turned and looked away.
Guy's grin didn't waver. "That's fine! Mystery is youthful too!" He pointed at Lee. "You next!"
Lee stepped forward, his chest swelling. "Sensei! It is my goal to prove I can become a splendid shinobi even without using ninjutsu or genjutsu! I want to show the world that hard work can overcome any amount of natural talent, and I want to become a shinobi known across the elemental nations for his taijutsu!"
Neji remained silent as he looked at the fool. What kind of ninja could he possibly become without ninjutsu or genjutsu? He would reach a limit that he could never overcome. If need be, Neji himself would become that limit and push him down every time he tried to rise above it.
"Listen up." Guy's expression shifted. "If you have enough passion, there's nothing that can stop you. Along with a good rival to push you." His eyes flicked to Neji. "If you give it your best, compete hard, and start improving, you will definitely become a splendid ninja." He gave Lee a thumbs up. "However, you'll still have to work your butts off." He looked at Tenten. "Now, what about you?"
"I want to walk in the footsteps of the legendary Lady Tsunade!" Tenten's eyes shone with an intensity that surprised Lee. He hadn't expected such fire from someone who'd seemed so composed minutes ago. "I'm going to become a legendary kunoichi!"
"Lady Tsunade!" Guy nodded with vigorous approval. "Her taijutsu is amazing, and she has monstrous strength. It's rumored that she almost killed her teammate, Master Jiraiya, who is also a member of the Legendary Sannin."
"So what am I going to have to do to become that strong?" Tenten leaned forward, hungry for the answer.
"Youth and sheer determination!" Guy matched her energy with a thumbs up.
Tenten waited for more. When nothing came, she deflated slightly but didn't argue. Lee could see the gears turning behind her eyes. She might not have gotten the detailed training plan she wanted, but she'd gotten something arguably more valuable: a sensei who believed in the power of effort.
"Now then." Guy clapped his hands together with a crack that startled a flock of birds from the nearest tree. "I should tell you the truth. I tricked you before when I said you were already genin."
The temperature of the training ground seemed to drop.
"The real test to become a genin is this." Guy waggled his finger, and the gesture was playful but the challenge behind it was not. "Show me everything you've got as shinobi. Hold nothing back." His stance shifted. "If you don't, you're going back to the academy."
The air left Lee's lungs in a rush.
Not now. Not after everything. Not after seven years of hospital food. He was not going back. He would break every bone in his body first. He would fight until his muscles tore and his vision went dark and his heart gave out, and even then, he would find a way to keep swinging.
"There's no way I'm going to fail at the final step!" Lee clenched his fist and charged.
He covered the distance to Guy in three strides, launching several attacks. Guy blocked all of them without appearing to move. His hands were simply in the right place at the right time, as if the attacks had been choreographed in advance.
Lee felt the gap. This was not like fighting an academy instructor. This was a jonin. An immovable, incomprehensible wall of strength so far beyond his own that the comparison barely made sense.
Guy's foot caught Lee in the chest and sent him tumbling backward across the training ground. Lee hit the dirt, rolled, and was back on his feet before the dust settled.
Neji stepped in and attacked Guy with everything he had.
Guy deflected every strike with the backs of his forearms, redirecting Neji's hands away from their targets without ever engaging them directly. Neji's frustration mounted with each failed attack, his tempo increasing, his strikes growing more aggressive, until Guy caught him with the same casual kick that had dismissed Lee.
Neji flew backward and landed hard, sliding across the packed earth until he came to rest beside a training post. The impact jolted his injured hands and the flash of pain that crossed his face was impossible to hide.
Tenten appeared behind Guy while his attention was on Neji. She had circled the training ground during the exchanges, moving quietly through the treeline. A kunai gleamed in each hand as she struck for the gap between Guy's shoulderblades, her approach angle chosen to avoid his peripheral vision.
Guy caught her by the torso with the bottom of his foot without looking back. He lifted Tenten off the ground entirely and sent her sailing toward Lee and Neji in a high, lazy arc. Before she could hit the dirt, Lee threw himself forward and caught her, absorbing the impact with his own body and laying her down as gently as his battered arms would allow.
"Thanks," Tenten muttered, brushing dust from her sleeve. "He didn't even look."
"No wonder he's a jonin." Neji said from his position against the training post, his voice carrying the grudging respect of someone forced to acknowledge a ceiling far above his own. "He can handle all three of us without effort."
"I know," Tenten agreed, rising to her feet. "Failing the final test after already graduating is just way too embarrassing."
Lee looked at both of them. At Neji, who had never worked with him before. At Tenten, who he'd spoken to for the first time only hours ago.
"Let's show everything we've got!" Lee pumped his fist. "Together!"
The word hung in the air. Together. Lee had never fought alongside anyone before. Every battle in his life had been him against the world. The idea of attacking alongside others, of trusting someone to cover his weaknesses while he covered theirs, was new and strange and thrilling in a way he hadn't expected.
The three of them rushed Guy at once.
Lee attacked from the front with a barrage of punches and kicks. Neji flanked from the right with Gentle Fist strikes aimed at Guy's chakra points. Tenten hurled kunai from the left, forcing Guy to track projectiles while defending against close-range assaults from two directions. They didn't complement each other so much as they overwhelmed through sheer volume, three separate attacks layered on top of each other with no plan beyond "hit him."
Guy met their combined assault with his own.
"Severe Leaf Hurricane!"
His roundhouse kick was a force of nature. The rotation generated a wall of wind that swept all three genin off their feet and sent them tumbling across the training ground in different directions. Lee felt the gust hit him like a physical blow, his body lifting off the ground and spinning through the air before crashing into the dirt twenty meters from where he'd started. His ribs screamed. His back screamed louder. The sealed tenketsu along his spine flared with fresh pain as the impact aggravated injuries that hadn't finished healing.
He lay in the dirt and stared at the sky. The sun was warm on his face. A bird circled overhead, riding the thermals with effortless grace.
"Giving up already, kids!?" Guy's voice carried across the training ground, casual and amused. Lee could hear him stretching, the pop and crackle of joints being loosened.
Lee laughed. "Giving up isn't in my vocabulary, sensei!" Lee pushed himself off the ground. His arms shook. His legs shook harder. His vision grayed around the edges and then sharpened again as pure stubbornness overrode his body's pleas for rest. "The start of my goal is right here. I can't give up before even making it to the starting line!"
Across the training ground, Neji stirred. The Hyuga prodigy glanced at Lee, he refused to be outdone by someone he considered beneath him.
"Ridiculous." Neji forced himself upright before Lee could fully stand, his competitive pride overriding the pain in his hands and ribs. "However, I'm not going to quit either. I'll never throw in the towel."
Tenten was the last to rise. She moved slowly, one hand pressed against her side where the landing had bruised her, the other gripping a kunai that she'd somehow held onto through the impact. Her jaw was set.
"That's right." She straightened her spine, grimacing. "I'll become just like the kunoichi I've always admired."
The three of them moved toward Guy. Slowly. Painfully. They should have stopped. Any reasonable person would have stopped. The test was clearly beyond them, the gap between three fresh genin and a jonin of Guy's caliber so vast that continuing was an exercise in futility. Stopping would have been the smart choice, the practical choice, the choice that preserved their bodies for the actual career ahead of them.
None of them stopped.
They kept walking. One foot in front of the other. Closing the distance between themselves and a man who could have defeated all three of them a hundred times over without breaking a sweat. A snail could have outpaced them. A gentle breeze might have knocked them over. But they moved, and they kept moving, and the simple act of continuing to move when every rational argument said to stop was, in its own way, the most powerful showing any of them had ever given.
Guy watched them come. This was what he had been looking for. The refusal to quit. The burning, stubborn, beautiful insistence on getting back up when the world had knocked you down, dusting yourself off, and walking forward on broken legs because the alternative was unacceptable.
"Now you're talking!" Guy's voice cracked. "This is exactly how youth should be!" He threw his arms wide open, leaving himself completely unguarded. "Even if all of your energy is almost completely gone, you just suck it up! You push through! Now come on! Hit me with all your might!"
Lee didn't hesitate. His fist drove forward with everything his broken body had left.
Neji's palm struck at the same instant, his swollen fingers straightening despite the agony it caused, the Gentle Fist's exacting form abandoned in favor of raw, unfiltered effort. Tenten's fist landed a heartbeat later, her small hand balled tight around the conviction that she would not be the weakest link.
Three strikes. Three students. All hitting Guy's face at the same moment with all the force their wounded, exhausted, trembling bodies could produce.
Guy didn't move a single centimeter.
The combined attack of three battered genin against a jonin of his caliber was, in terms of pure physical force, roughly equivalent to a stiff wind. It was nothing. It was less than nothing.
But the roar that erupted from Guy's chest shook the training ground.
He snatched all three of them into a hug so tight that Lee heard Tenten's spine pop and Neji's strangled gasp of protest was muffled against Guy's shoulder. The jonin's arms wrapped around them with the force of someone trying to hold together three things that were infinitely precious, his massive frame engulfing theirs, his warmth pouring into their battered bodies like sunlight into frozen earth.
"You three! You all pass!" Guy's voice was thick with tears he made no effort to hide. His smile was genuine. "Welcome to Team Guy!"
Lee burst into tears.
"I made it…" His voice broke on the words. "I made it to the starting line…"
Neji endured the hug with a grimace that could have curdled milk, his face pressed against green spandex, his broken hands pinned at his sides, his dignity in tatters.
"I can't breathe…" Tenten wheezed.
Guy released them with a laugh that sent birds scattering from the nearest trees. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "From this day forward, we are Team Guy! We will train harder than any team in Konoha! We will burn with the fires of youth! We will become splendid ninja who make the whole village proud!"
Lee saluted through his tears. Tenten rubbed her crushed ribs. Neji silently wondered if he was allowed to request a different jonin sensei on the first day.
[Taijutsu Proficiency +220 points!]
[Achievement Unlocked: Become a genin! Reward obtained: Weighted Nunchaku]