Chapter 52 - Sasuke vs Zaku

"Hey, Tenten, I'm also glad you passed. By the way, I really have to shit, so see ya!"

He turned around but unfortunately, Lee appeared.

"Hey, you! Don't you think it's rude to ditch a girl trying to talk with you?"

"Don't you think it's rude to everyone with a normal fashion sense to walk around like that?"

"AHAHAHA how lovely the youth is, debating about fashion. But you see young boy, this suit isn't only stylish, it is also air-permeable -"

Guy was interrupted by the start of the battle.

Eiji was happy about that since he not only escaped the dangerous predator known as a jealous childhood friend, but also the pair of Konoha's green weirdos!

Anyway, the fight started.

Sasuke knew that his opponent was a long-range fighter, so opposite to his fight in the original timeline, he was the one charging at his opponent.

Zaku defended himself with his kicks since he acted like both his arms were still dislocated.

Even his teammates thought that his arms were unusable.

He wanted to surprise his opponent and decide the match with one fatal move!

Of course, Sasuke was way more gifted in taijutsu and since Zaku pretend that he couldn't use his arms, he was driven fast into a corner.

If he didn't use it now, he would probably lose.

So when Sasuke was about to throw a punch at him, instead of defending like until now, he raised his arms and shouted with a smile: "TAKE THIS!"

Sasuke felt instantly a dangerous sensation.

His superb Uchiha instincts warned him in time, so even though he was hit by Zakus airwave, it wasn't a fatal hit.

But he was still badly injured: his left arm was completely covered in blood and was unusable.

"You..." - Sasuke panted.

He never imagined that Zaku could still use his arms.

"HAHAHA! THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR MESSING WITH ME! BUT DON'T THINK THIS IS ALL, I WILL ABSOLUTELY SAVOR EVERY SECOND OF THIS REMATCH!!!"

"Uchiha Sasuke...this is all he can do?" - Gaara

"HOW CAN YOU STILL CALL YOURSELF AN UCHIHA SASUKE? YOU'RE A DISGRACE TO...TO YOURSELF!! AREN'T YOU EMBARRASSED TO HAVE EVERYONE SEE YOU AS BIG LOSER?!" - Naruto

When Sasuke heard that, he looked towards Naruto.

But because of Eiji, Lee wasn't standing next to Naruto, so Sasuke didn't have the crucial inspiration to copy Lee's taijutsu.

Sasuke was standing there contemplating what to do, but now his curse mark started to hurt again and activated

"HAHAHA! WHAT NOW SASUKE? ARE YOU JUST GONNA KEEP STANDING THERE? WELL, I DON'T CARE SO EAT MY AIRWAVE!"

Zaku started to raise his arms for his attack.

'Sasuke, you have no choice but to use my power, or else you'll die!' - Orochimaru

Hiruzen, Anko, and Kakashi saw how the curse mark was activating and they got ready to step in.

'This damn curse...and Sakura and Naruto worry for no reason...like I will let this mark ran wild and get disqualified!'

Sasuke smiled and suppressed the curse mark.

"!"

They were surprised: he suppressed the curse mark that easily.

But compared to the original timeline, his physical and mental energies weren't drained - he was "only" physically wounded.

So with his iron will he suppressed it faster than in the original timeline.

This gave him precious time to do something against his opponent's looming fatal attack.

When Zaku was about to unleash his attack, he laughed madly while shouting: "HAHAHAHA! DIE, SASUKE!!"

But Sasuke's smile just grew wider while he said: "Idiot, the one who dies is you -"

BOOOOOMMM!!!!

Zaku's arms exploded.

The explosion was even bigger than vs Shino.

Why did his arms explode?

The reason is, that even though Sasuke shouldn't use any chakra for this fight to not activate his curse mark if it's only a minuscule amount, he could still suppress the curse mark.

So Sasuke didn't use any "real" jutsu, but instead only used fire chakra, which flowed into Zaku's arm air tubes.

But how did the chakra flow from such a distance to Zaku?

The reason was, that when Sasuke engaged in taijutsu back then, he used non-visible threads to counter Zaku, should he be able to distance himself.

Letting a long-range user escape into the distance would be really bad, so Sasuke set up a backup plan to just pull him into short-range again.

Unfortunately, he didn't expect Zaku to use his powerful airwave attack from his arms, so most of the prepared threads were destroyed in this attack.

But luckily there were still a few threats connected to him, so when Sasuke sensed that Zaku was sucking air into his arms, he let fire chakra flow along the threads into his air tubes.

Zaku didn't sense the threads back then, so of course, he didn't sense them now.

Anyway, Sasuke won!