As the announcement to start the match fell on everyone's ears, Yami and Lee rushed at each other. Both of them knew better than to let the other take the initiative to attack. Lee clenched his fists and sent a punch toward Yami's chest. Yami blocked the punch with his hand and quickly threw it to the side. He quickly jumped back to create distance.
He looked at his hand and saw that directly blocking the punch with his palm didn't give him any injury or even any kind of pain. 'Devouring so many bodies improved my physique.' Yami thought as he expected a slight amount of redness seeing that Lee's punch held considerable power.
He decided to take the initiative to attack this time and flickered to Lee's side. Lee who was alert noticed this and folded his arm to the side to block the punch coming but to his surprise Yami didn't punch. In fact Yami threw a kick toward Lee's knee. He wanted to throw Lee off-balance. Lee had no choice but to take the kick to the side of his knee. As Yami expected Lee lost his balance and started to fall to the other side.
"It won't be as easy as our academy days." Lee said and supported his entire body on his hands while rotating his leg round and round to deter any attack coming from Yami at this time of weakness.
"Tsk." Yami didn't get the chance to attack Lee as he had predicted and had to wait for Lee to jump and land on his feet. He still took a chance and as Lee was in the air, Yami threw 3 kunais at Lee's torso.
Lee instantly stretched both his legs in front of him making his orange loose socks like things block the kunais. Yami knew that under those loose orange socks, Lee wore his leg weights.
'He used those metal weights to block my kunais. I should have used lightning chakra on it' Yami thought. He wanted to see to what extent could he fight Lee with pure taijutsu. Yami was sure that if both fought only with taijutsu, then Lee would win as he had the eight gates to give him a significant boost.
"Why didn't Yami use the technique you gave him Asuma sensei?" Choji who was munching on something asked.
"Yami is more than qualified to become a chunin and so is Lee. They aren't fighting to proceed to the 3rd test but to see how they compare to each other. Yami wants to see how good he is as compared to lee without using his chakra." Asuma said.
"Just like Yami...he is looking down on lee by giving him a handicap." Kiba grumbled which earned him a glare from Ino.
Kurenai just laughed while messing with Kiba's hair and said "This isn't called looking down Kiba. This is called fighting on equal ground. Lee has been picked on plenty of times since his childhood for not having chakra, and now after training so much if he loses to Yami just because Yami used chakra then that would create a heart demon for Lee. He would grow up thinking that no matter how much he trains, he can't become strong without chakra."
As the other genins heard this they looked at lee with a little pity. Neji remembered how his classmates taunted lee. How he saw Lee as someone insignificant.
Back at the stage Yami and Lee were constantly throwing attacks at each other. They would deflect, block and take damage from each other's attacks but they wouldn't even stop for a second. This continuous flurry of attacks impressed even the jonins and chunins standing on the sidelines for security.
By now many had started noticing one difference. Yami had the upper hand and one of the main reasons for that was Yami's speed. Without using a shred of chakra Yami was able to not just match Lee in terms of speed but also go a step further. Yami still hadn't activated his Sharingan but was using his enhanced senses. By sensing the directions of air compressions and the amount of air compressed, he was able to determine where the punch or kick was coming from and whether it was a real attack or just a feint to distract Yami. Yami didn't use too much strength and only focused on Lee's joints and other vital areas.
He wanted to damage them enough that even if Lee uses eight gates later, he wouldn't be able to maintain it for long. On top of that Yami was wearing weights that were working in work capacity and it was Twice as much of what Lee was currently wearing.
The only problem Yami was facing was Lee's kicks. They held way more speed and raw power as compared to his punches and this was breaking Yami's momentum from time to time. Seeing that the match was going nowhere, Lee jumped back and landed on a hill on one side of the stage.
Lee looked at Guy and before he could ask for permission Guy nodded and said "I understand Lee. Go ahead."
Lee's eyes widen as he asks "Are you sure Guy sensei? You told me never to..."
"Yes I know Lee but Yami is a worthy opponent and this is a worthy stage to do it." Guy said.
"Is he gonna use the technique which you talked about?" Ino asked Guy and all eyes turned to him including Hiruzen and Orochimaru.
Guy shook his head and said "No...you can say this is one step short of using that technique."
"Guy I still think you should not let him use that technique for such matches." Kakashi tried to convince Guy. Guy had already told him the price of using the eight gates and Kakashi was right to believe that using such a technique for just a chunin exam match isn't worth it.
(The entire fight is already on my P@treon)
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