Stone under his sandals. The circle of the arena felt too small and too big at the same time.
Sasuke stopped at his mark and let the noise around him fade into a low, distant roar. Up above, the balconies were crowded with jōnin and exam officials and whatever important people liked to watch kids beat each other half to death for fun.
Across the ring, Yoroi Akadō pushed his glasses up his nose with two fingers.
Konoha flak vest, hood up, face mostly shadowed. Bandages wrapped around his hands, disappearing into fingerless gloves. His shoulders slouched like he was bored, but his chakra was pulled tight and mean, coiling close to his skin. Blue-white, with ugly little hooks in it.
Hayate shuffled back a step between them, coughing into his fist.
"C–cough—combatants ready?" he rasped.
Yoroi rolled his neck. "Sure."
Sasuke said nothing. He slid a foot back, lowering his center of gravity, and let his fingers twitch once at his sides like he was checking they still worked. The skin along his neck burned, an old phantom heat that made him want to claw at the cursed seal under his shirt.
Kakashi's voice pushed through the static of his thoughts:
If you rely on that mark, I stop the fight myself. You lose everything.
Sasuke let out a slow breath through his nose.
Hayate's hand chopped through the air. "Begin!"
Yoroi moved first. No shout, no bravado. Just a direct, efficient step in, weight on the ball of his foot, hand already lashing out for Sasuke's chest.
Sasuke slipped sideways, feeling the rush of air brush his shirt. Yoroi's other hand was already there, cutting at his blind angle.
Fast.
Sasuke twisted, forearm slamming into Yoroi's wrist, redirecting it past his ribs. He snapped a kick at the man's knee.
Yoroi took the hit, leg buckling a little, but his hand had already hooked under Sasuke's bicep. Fingers closed like a clamp.
Cold.
Sasuke felt it immediately—a sick drain, like a plug being pulled out of his chakra system. Energy slid down his arm, through Yoroi's hand, irising out of him in a way that made his vision dim at the edges.
At the same time, the curse mark twitched.
Heat licked up from under his collar like a tongue. The three tomoe burned under his skin, hungry and eager, reacting to the sudden vacuum.
For one instant, a second flow surged up in answer: dark, violent, wild, shoving against the drain like a beast waking up.
No.
Sasuke slammed down on it with everything he had. Jaw clenched. Muscles locked. He tore his arm free with a jerk that wrenched his shoulder.
They broke apart.
His right arm felt numb and too hot at once. His breathing had gone uneven. Across from him, Yoroi flexed his hand, knuckles popping, like he'd just tested a new tool.
"You felt that, right?" the man said calmly. "Your chakra tastes good, kid. Strong. I'll take all of it."
Sasuke shook feeling back into his fingers. "You can try."
He didn't move his left hand toward his weapons. He didn't start any seals.
He couldn't risk it.
Anything that made his chakra flare—big ninjutsu, sudden surges—was like shaking meat in front of a chained dog. The mark under his skin would strain against the leash. Kakashi's warning echoed again, sharp and absolute.
If it spreads, I will end it.
Yoroi came in again, faster, teeth bared a little now.
Sasuke fell back, trading space for time, letting his body move on the drills Kakashi had hammered into him. Step, slip, parry, pivot. Yoroi's bandaged hands kept seeking contact, open-palmed strikes that never quite became full hits. Every time Sasuke blocked or brushed them aside, a faint chill skimmed his skin, like getting too close to a leech.
He had to stop letting the man touch him at all.
He needed to see.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. The world tightened in front of him, background blur sliding away as he focused on Yoroi's shoulders, hips, elbows. The motion under the motion.
Sharingan opened with a familiar, unpleasant lurch.
Color sharpened. Edges got too clean, like ink lines around the shapes. Yoroi's chakra glimmered blue-white under his skin, pulsing with each beat of his heart.
More importantly, his movements started to… unspool.
The first time Sasuke had seen it, back when his Sharingan had flickered awake against Haku, it had made him nauseous. Movements replaying themselves over and over in his vision, ghost-hands and ghost-feet overlaying the real ones a fraction of a second ahead.
Now he leaned into it.
Yoroi stepped in. In Sasuke's eyes, the man stepped in three times: the real foot, and two pale afterimages tracking the path it would take.
Shoulder drops. Left hand feint. Right hand grab.
It was like someone had laid a second body over Yoroi's, colourless and exact, and pressed play half a heartbeat early.
If he let go a little, relaxed his grip on his own instincts, his muscles wanted to fall into that pre-recorded rhythm. The Sharingan whispered: He'll be here. Put your weight there. Now.
The world narrowed to vectors and timing marks.
Cold slid in behind his anger, behind the tight ball of fear about the curse mark. Flow state, but not the hot, reckless version Naruto chased. This was sharper, more surgical. Like standing outside himself and pulling on strings.
Yoroi's hand cut toward his shoulder. Sasuke was already dropping, the blow whispering over his hair. He pivoted, heel grinding stone, and drove an elbow toward Yoroi's floating ribs.
The man twisted out of the way. His hand whipped down for Sasuke's neck.
The ghost-hand moved before the real one. Sasuke bent backward under it, spine protesting, and swept a kick low at Yoroi's ankle.
Bandaged fingers brushed his shirt. Cold sparked against his collarbone, another greedy sip, but not enough for a full connection. Yoroi jumped back, frustrated flash across his shadowed face.
Around the arena, the crowd's noise rose.
Up in the stands, Naruto had both hands on the railing, eyes shining.
"Yeah! That's it, Sasuke!" he yelled. "Don't let that weirdo grab you!"
Beside him, Sylvie's fingers dug into the metal bar. Her eyes tracked Sasuke's movements with a different kind of intensity. In her head, the chakra in him—his normal, hot blue flame—looked overlayed with thinner, cooler threads. Borrowed lines of motion that didn't quite match his usual way of moving.
From the outside, it looked like he was fighting in borrowed light.
On the other balcony, Gai had leaned forward so far he was nearly horizontal. "Did you see that, Lee? Did you see it? He is using our style!"
Lee's eyes were star-bright. "Yes, Gai-sensei! My rival is taking the path of youth I showed him and making it his own! Truly, this proves the beauty of naming techniques!"
Tenten pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's what you got from this?"
Neji said nothing, pale eyes narrowed as he watched the way Sasuke's weight shifted. There was a faint quirk at the corner of his mouth that, for him, might as well have been an entire monologue.
Back on the floor, Yoroi reset his stance.
"You're wasting chakra on those eyes," he said. "Makes it easier for me."
He lunged.
The Sharingan caught the tell—a slight bunching in his left calf, the way his shoulder twisted a fraction early. The ghost of his next move played itself out: high strike, then drop step, then grab to the abdomen.
Sasuke didn't meet him head on.
He stepped in, just like Yoroi wanted, then slid his foot to the side at the last instant in a way that didn't belong to Yoroi at all.
It belonged to Rock Lee.
The memory of their fight on the balcony flickered across his body. A green blur, the weight of Lee's foot crashing into his jaw, the humiliation of hitting the floor before he even understood what had happened.
Under the Sharingan, that memory became data.
Lee's stance, low and coiled. The way he seemed to fall into gravity and then defy it. That first simple, devastating sequence of steps and spins.
Sasuke let that muscle memory ghost over his own. He stole the opening moves and grafted them onto Yoroi's pattern.
He dropped his weight. Let his hips turn the way Lee's had. Let the floor roll up through his legs.
His foot slammed into Yoroi's side in a clean, brutal arc.
The man grunted, air exploding out of his lungs, eyes widening behind his glasses as he staggered.
"Wha—"
Sasuke was already moving.
He followed, body snapping through a string of blows that felt both completely new and eerily familiar. A punch that started as a standard Uchiha combination, then curved mid-way into one of Kakashi's corrected forms. A step that belonged entirely to Lee, leading into a spin that was all Sasuke, adapting for his height and reach.
It was like nothing and everything he'd ever trained.
The Sharingan fed him ghosts: if Yoroi dodged left, there; if he ducked, here.
Sasuke chose the strands he wanted and braided them together.
Yoroi managed to get a hand up once, fingers scrambling for contact. Sasuke saw it coming in the flicker-images and let his own arm take the brush of cold on the outside instead of his chest, rolling with it, refusing to give the man a real grip.
His chakra was still leaking in tiny sips. Each graze left him a little lighter, a little shakier.
He needed to end this.
Yoroi backpedaled, guard higher now, respect finally in his eyes.
"Persistent brat," he spat. "Fine. Let's see how long you last when you can't stand up."
He vaulted backward, planting one hand on the arena wall, then pushed off in a shallow arc to come down at Sasuke from above, both hands reaching.
The ghosts showed him the trajectory.
Sasuke didn't wait to be landed on.
He sprinted toward the wall instead.
For a split second, gravity and common sense screamed at him. Then his chakra, thin but still there, flowed to his feet. He ran up the stone in three rapid steps, the world tilting as the wall became floor and the arena became a bowl off to the side.
Yoroi's eyes flicked up.
"What—"
Sasuke kicked off the wall.
Air swallowed him. For a moment, everything slowed to syrup.
Yoroi below, arms half-raised. The ghost-motions unspooled: if he tried to dodge right, if he tried to jump back, if he reached up.
Sasuke's body moved through the gaps.
His heel smashed into Yoroi's jaw from above, snapping the man's head back. The impact sent him flying up, weightless for a stunned, ugly second.
The world blurred.
Sasuke was above him again, having twisted mid-air. Fists and feet found the marks the Sharingan laid out: ribs, stomach, sternum. The pattern wasn't Lee's exact Lotus, but the skeleton of it was there, hidden under Sasuke's own improvisation.
"Got him!" Naruto yelled, almost climbing over the railing. "Kick his ass, Sasuke!"
Sylvie didn't shout. Her nails bit crescents into her palms. She watched the way Sasuke moved with both his own chakra and those thin silver overlays of remembered motion. It made her stomach flip.
Borrowed light, burning bright and fast.
Down below, the last hit lined itself up.
Sasuke hooked his leg over Yoroi's chest, turned the spin, and drove him toward the ground.
They hit like a dropped boulder.
Stone cracked. Dust jumped. The impact thudded up through Sasuke's bones. Yoroi's body crumpled into the floor, the back of his head bouncing once. His glasses flew off, skittering away across the arena.
Sasuke landed in a low crouch beside the crater, one hand on the ground to steady himself.
Yoroi's body twitched. Still alive, but not fighting.
Everything inside him hurt.
His lungs burned. His right arm felt like it belonged to someone else. The world pulsed at the edges in time with his heartbeat.
A feeble groan came from crater and under Sasuke's shirt, the curse mark pounded.
It wasn't a flare, not like in the forest, no ink-black spokes crawling over his skin. It was deeper, a bruise under the bone trying to bloom. It throbbed with each pulse of his blood, a dull, insistent ache that promised power if he just stopped fighting it.
Use me, it whispered, in Orochimaru's voice and his own and something else layered together. You're already copying scraps. Take what I'm offering. Finish him.
He clenched his teeth until his jaw clicked. Shut up.
He shoved the sensation down, imagined stamping it into the floor next to Yoroi. The seal burned, then cooled by a fraction. The world snapped into harsher focus.
Hayate's coughing cut through the ringing in his ears. The proctor stumbled forward, one hand up.
"Kh— winner is… Uchiha Sasuke!" he called, voice ragged but clear.
The arena erupted.
Naruto whooped so loud he startled Akamaru into barking from where Kiba still half-hid him under his jacket.
"Did you see that?!" Naruto yelled at anyone with ears. "That was so cool! He went WHOOSH and then BAM BAM BAM—"
Kiba smirked, shoulders relaxing the tiniest bit. "Yeah, yeah. He's not completely hopeless."
Hinata clutched the railing like it was the only thing keeping her upright, pale eyes wide. "T-that movement… it was… incredible…"
Up above, Gai's teeth sparkled, catching nonexistent sunlight.
"Did you feel it, Lee?" he boomed. "The fire of youth blazing in this arena?!"
Lee nodded so hard his bowl-cut shook. "Yes, Gai-sensei! He has taken one of our techniques and created his own version! This is proof that my training methods have worth! I must, at once, think of an even more youthful name than 'Lion's Barrage' for his combination!"
Tenten groaned. "Please don't encourage him," she muttered.
Neji folded his arms. "Names will not matter if he collapses before the next fight," he said under his breath.
On the floor, med-nin were already hurrying to Yoroi. One knelt to check his breathing, the other carefully pried one of his hands off the cracked stone. His fingers were limp now; no more cold leech-feeling.
Sasuke straightened slowly.
For a second, his knees didn't entirely want to cooperate. The urge to sway was strong. The Sharingan slid closed; his world drained of the sharp, double-exposed clarity, returning to normal edges and normal color.
Normal hurt.
He forced his spine straight and his arms loose at his sides. He made the walk back toward the waiting genin like each step didn't make the curse mark grind against his nerves.
As he approached, Naruto practically bounced out to meet him.
"Hey, hey!" Naruto grabbed his shoulder, then snatched his hand back like he'd touched a hot stove. "You did it! Bastard, that was awesome!"
Sasuke grunted. It was the closest he could get to "thanks" without his pride clawing its way out of his throat.
Naruto leaned in, eyes wide. "You did that spinny kick thing like Bushy Brows! But also like you. We gotta name it something."
Behind him, Sylvie's voice was quieter, but not soft. "Whatever you call it, don't… don't kill yourself to use it."
Sasuke glanced at her.
She had that look she got when she was watching chakra too closely. Eyes slightly unfocused, like she was seeing layers no one else could. Her brow was pinched, mouth pulled tight.
"You're burning both ends," she said, gaze flicking from his eyes to where the mark lay hidden on his neck. "The more you lean on that—" she pointed, very lightly, at his temple "—the more everything else strains. Just. Be careful. Okay?"
It was the kind of concern that made something in him want to snap automatically, to say he didn't need lectures from anyone, least of all her.
He didn't.
He still heard Kakashi's earlier warning in her words. And under that, his brother's voice: You're still too weak.
He looked away.
"I'll do what I have to," he said.
Naruto blinked between them, sensing something heavier under the conversation and absolutely not equipped to handle it. "Whatever! You're both overthinking it," he declared. "He won! That's what matters!"
"Winning and living are both good outcomes, yes," Sylvie muttered.
Up above, Kakashi watched his student's stiff back. The silver-haired jōnin's visible eye crinkled at the edge, but it wasn't amusement. His gaze lingered on the spot where the curse mark slept under fabric.
The thing Orochimaru had left there was quiet. For now. Too quiet, like a wound gone numb instead of healing.
Sasuke shifted his weight, rolling his sore shoulder once, as discreetly as he could. The board above them hummed, names starting to blur again.
"Naruto, Sylvie," Kakashi's lazy drawl floated down from behind them.
All three of them turned.
Kakashi had appeared at the back of their little cluster without a sound, one hand stuck in his pocket, the other holding his orange book half-open. He snapped it shut with a soft snap and tucked it away.
"Sasuke," he said. "You're coming with me."
Sasuke frowned. "Tch. I can still fight."
"Not the point," Kakashi replied. His tone didn't change, but the air around his words went heavier. "We need to look at that mark. Thoroughly. Before you do anything else."
Naruto's head whipped back and forth between them. "Huh? Now? But there's still more matches! Shino hasn't even gone yet, and—"
Kakashi rested a hand lightly on Sasuke's shoulder. To anyone watching from a distance, it probably looked casual. Sasuke felt the steel under it.
"This isn't a request," Kakashi said quietly, just for him. "Move."
For a heartbeat, Sasuke considered shrugging him off. The urge to stay, to keep watching the Sound trio, to keep measuring himself against every other name on that board, burned hot.
Then the curse mark under his collar pulsed, a slow, warning throb that crawled up the side of his neck.
He clicked his tongue, annoyed at everything, and stepped away from the railing.
"Don't screw anything up while I'm gone," he said over his shoulder.
Naruto puffed up. "Like I could! I'll remember everything and tell you later!"
Sylvie didn't say anything at first. Her eyes flicked from Sasuke to Kakashi's hand on his shoulder, then to the faint, wrong-colored shimmer of chakra under his skin that only she could see.
"Don't let him poke you too hard," she managed. "You'll bruise."
"Mind your own business," Sasuke shot back automatically.
Kakashi's eye softened for a fraction of a second when he looked at her. "Keep an eye on Naruto for me," he said. "And don't mention the mark to anyone else. We don't need rumors on top of everything."
Sylvie nodded, throat tight. Naruto sputtered, "Hey! I can keep an eye on myself!"
"Exactly," Kakashi said. "Problem."
He guided Sasuke toward the exit with that same light, unarguable grip.
On the opposite balcony, Kabuto adjusted his glasses, expression smooth. His gaze slid off Yoroi's unconscious form and tracked the pair of them as they walked away. When Kakashi and Sasuke disappeared into the shadowed corridor, a faint smile touched his lips.
Hayate hacked up another cough in the center of the arena, clutching at his chest. When he got his breath back, he turned toward the wall.
"C-cough— a-alright. Next match," he wheezed. "Board, spin it up."
The names on the big screen blurred into motion again, cycling through the roster, throwing out ghost-letters and half-formed patterns.
Naruto pressed up against the railing, already yelling about who should be next. Sylvie stayed quieter, eyes on the empty doorway where Sasuke had gone, one hand pressed absently over the pouch where she kept her ink and tags.
Above them all, under the Hokage's stone gaze, the exam ground churned on.
Whatever tricks the other villages were hiding, whatever games Orochimaru was playing, this was only the beginning.
And somewhere out of sight, down a side corridor, Sasuke was walking toward a room where someone was finally going to do something about the snake's poison burning under his skin.