Host: Rock Lee
Age: 5
Rank: Academy Student
Skills: Taijutsu F (0/10), Ninjutsu F (0/10), Genjutsu F (0/10), Shurikenjutsu F (0/10)
Unique Skills: None
Equipment: None
The morning sun beat down on the Konoha Academy training grounds, and Rock Lee's lungs burned like hot coals. His legs pumped mechanically beneath him, each step a small victory against the exhaustion threatening to drag him down.
"Haha, idiot!" Kentaro laughed from just ahead, his words punctuated by easy breaths. "There's no way you could become a ninja!"
"Like a guy who can't use ninjutsu could ever become a ninja, right?" Satomi added, her ponytail swishing as she glanced back at him with a mixture of pity and amusement.
Lee's smile never wavered. "I'll do it." The words came out between measured breaths, simple and certain as sunrise.
A third student, Daichi, snorted. "Actually, it's kind of ridiculous that you, a guy who can only do below-average taijutsu, are at a ninja academy in the first place." The words should have stung. They were meant to sting. But Lee had heard variations of this particular insult so many times that they'd lost their edge, worn smooth like river stones.
"Hey Lee," a fourth voice called out, dripping with false sweetness. "You know what they call you?"
Here it comes, Lee thought, but his smile only grew brighter.
"Spirited Loser, Lee!" they shouted in unison, the nickname rolling off their tongues with practiced cruelty.
Lee's grin threatened to split his face. "I am pretty spirited, huh?" Without warning, he surged forward, drawing on reserves of pure determination that no amount of chakra could match. His legs moved faster, fueled by something his classmates would never understand: the simple, unshakable belief that hard work could overcome anything. "Watch my spirit shine brightly!" For a brief, glorious moment, Lee left them behind. Their startled cries of "Whoa!" and "Hey, Lee, come back!" faded as he pushed himself harder, faster, further than they thought possible. It wouldn't last. It never did. But that wasn't the point. The point was proving, if only to himself, that limits were meant to be broken.
Even if he had to break them one at a time.
• •
The sparring circle was packed earth, worn smooth by countless battles between academy students learning to hurt each other in the name of their village. Lee stood in the center, his stance wide and ready, while Hyuga Neji regarded him with the same mild interest one might show a particularly persistent insect.
The Hyuga prodigy moved like water, his Gentle Fist technique a study in economy and precision. Lee barely saw the strike coming before it connected with his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs and sending him stumbling backward.
"Guh!" Lee's feet crossed the circle's boundary, and he crashed into the dirt beyond it.
"Once a failure, always a failure." Neji's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. He turned and began walking away before Lee had even stopped rolling.
[Taijutsu Proficiency +5 points!]
Lee clutched his stomach where Neji's palm strike still throbbed, but managed to push himself to his knees. "Great fight, Neji-kun!" His voice wavered only slightly. "I really learned a lot against you!" He extended his hand in the Seal of Reconciliation, even knowing Neji wouldn't acknowledge it.
The instructor didn't even look up from his scoring sheet, his pen scratching methodically across the paper. Neji's back disappeared into the crowd of students without so much as a glance backward. Lee's hand remained extended, trembling slightly, his smile unwavering even in the face of complete indifference.
He struggled to his feet, cataloging the mistakes he'd made. Too reckless. Too direct. Too predictable. Neji had read him like an open book, and Lee had obliged by following the exact same patterns he always did. Next time would be different. It had to be.
Around the circle, his classmates had already turned their attention elsewhere, the brief spectacle of his defeat forgotten in favor of more interesting matches. That was fine. Let them forget. Lee would remember every second of this fight, replay it in his mind until he understood exactly where he'd gone wrong and how to fix it.
Because there would be a next time. There was always a next time.
• •
The ancient trees of Konoha's training grounds had stood for generations, silent witnesses to countless shinobi honing their skills. Now they bore witness to something different: a five-year-old boy attacking them with single-minded determination that bordered on obsession.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Lee's knuckles were raw and bleeding, but he didn't stop. Each impact sent jolts of pain up his arms, each kick left his shins throbbing, each headbutt made his vision swim. But pain was just information, a signal that his body was being pushed beyond its current limits. And limits, as Lee had learned, were meant to be temporary.
He lifted a fallen log that was easily twice his weight, muscles screaming in protest as he hoisted it onto his shoulders. Squats. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. His legs quivered, threatened to give out, but he pushed through. Neji's palm strikes had been fast, precise, devastating. The only way to counter that was to become faster, more precise, more devastating.
Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes, but Lee's smile never faltered. This was it. This was the path forward. While his classmates relied on chakra and jutsu, he would forge his body into a weapon through pure, unrelenting effort.
[Taijutsu Proficiency +1 points!]
[Taijutsu Proficiency +1 points!]
[Taijutsu Proficiency +1 points!]
[Taijutsu Proficiency +1 points!]
[Taijutsu Proficiency +1 points!]
[Taijutsu Proficiency has reached the next level!]
Finally, when his body absolutely refused to continue, Lee collapsed onto the forest floor. His chest heaved, his limbs felt like lead, and every muscle fiber sang with exhaustion. But his smile remained, undimmed by fatigue.
"I can feel it," he whispered to the canopy above. "One step closer to my dream. Nothing will stop me!" The words echoed through the empty training ground, a promise to himself and the universe.
• •
The next time Lee faced Neji in the sparring circle, something had changed. The other students couldn't see it. To them, Lee was still the same hapless failure, stumbling into another inevitable defeat. Even the instructor seemed resigned to the outcome, his pen already moving to mark down Neji's victory.
But Lee knew. In the days since their last match, he'd replayed every moment, analyzed every mistake, drilled new patterns into his muscle memory until they were as natural as breathing. His body still bore the marks of his training: bruised knuckles, scraped shins, a persistent ache in his shoulders. But these were badges of progress, not defeat.
Rock Lee rushed forward with his fist raised high above his head, the picture of reckless aggression. Neji's expression didn't change; he'd seen this attack before. "What a fool," he muttered, already moving to end this in one strike.
Lee's grin widened. Now. At the last possible moment, just as his fist was about to descend, Lee halted all momentum and pivoted. His body twisted, converting the overhead strike into a sweeping kick aimed at Neji's midsection. The feint was crude, telegraphed even, but it was something new, something Neji hadn't seen from him before.
For the briefest instant, Neji's eyebrows rose. Surprise, actual surprise, flickered across his face before his training kicked in. His hand caught Lee's kick, deflected it overhead, and his palm was already thrusting toward Lee's chest before the younger boy could recover his balance.
"Not this time, Neji!" Lee's arms crossed in a desperate block. "Oh wow, you're really fast!" The impact sent Lee skidding backward, his feet leaving trenches in the dirt as he fought to stay inside the circle. His forearms throbbed where they'd absorbed Neji's strike, but he'd done it. He'd actually blocked one of Neji's attacks.
The look in Neji's eyes changed. The bored indifference was gone, replaced by something sharper, more focused. This wasn't just another routine sparring match anymore. Lee had forced him to pay attention.
Neji didn't bother speaking. He simply advanced, both palms raised in the Gentle Fist stance, moving with the kind of speed and precision that had made him the academy's undisputed prodigy. Lee's heart hammered in his chest as he watched death approach in the form of a seven-year-old boy.
This was it. The moment Lee had been training for. He couldn't match Neji's speed or technique, couldn't defend against the Gentle Fist's precision strikes. But he didn't need to. He just needed Neji to commit to the attack.
When Neji closed the distance, Lee stood perfectly still. To everyone watching, it looked like fear had paralyzed him, the classic freeze response of prey caught by a predator. The instructor shifted forward, ready to intervene if necessary.
Neji's fingers formed a spear, all five points targeting the left side of Lee's chest. Time seemed to slow. Lee could see the strike coming, could calculate its trajectory, could brace himself for the inevitable pain. This was going to hurt. A lot.
But pain was temporary. Victory, even a small one, would last forever.
The strike connected with devastating accuracy. Lee tasted copper as blood filled his mouth, his chest exploding in sharp, stabbing agony. But his hands were already moving, closing around Neji's extended arm like iron shackles. The Hyuga prodigy's eyes widened, actually widened, in shock.
Lee pulled his head back and drove forward with every ounce of strength left in his body. His forehead met Neji's with a crack that echoed across the training ground. Blood bloomed from Neji's nose as he staggered backward, and Lee's vision went dark around the edges.
The ground rushed up to meet him. As consciousness faded, Lee caught a glimpse of Neji's face, no longer bored, no longer dismissive, but twisted in genuine fury. 'Worth it,' he thought, and then the world went black.
"You…!" Neji's voice shook with an emotion he'd never shown before. "You…!" His hand formed the finger-spear again, this time aimed at Lee's unconscious form with lethal intent. The instructor was already moving, but would he be fast enough to…
[Taijutsu Proficiency +50 points!]
Host: Rock Lee
Age: 5
Rank: Academy Student
Skills: Taijutsu E (50/100), Ninjutsu F (0.001/10), Genjutsu F (0.001/10), Shurikenjutsu E (10/100)
Unique Skills: None
Equipment: None
The instructor's hand clamped down on Neji's wrist, stopping the strike centimeters from Lee's throat. "That's enough!" His voice cracked like a whip, shocking the watching students out of their stunned silence.
Neji struggled against the restraining grip, his Byakugan still active, veins bulging at his temples. The instructor held firm, his own chakra reinforcing his strength to keep the enraged prodigy from completing his attack. Around the circle, students whispered in disbelief.
"Did you see that?"
"The Spirited Loser actually hit Neji…"
"It was just a fluke," someone said dismissively, and the murmur of agreement spread through the crowd. "Yeah, a lucky shot. Nothing more."
The alternative, that Rock Lee had actually improved, that hard work had closed even a fraction of the gap between a talentless failure and a clan prodigy, was too uncomfortable to contemplate. Better to dismiss it as luck and return to the comfortable certainty that some people were born to succeed and others to fail.
But they hadn't felt the iron grip of Lee's fingers around their arm, hadn't seen the calculating intelligence in his eyes the moment before he struck. Only Neji knew the truth, and it burned in his chest like acid.
That failure had planned it. Every second of that exchange had been deliberate, from the obvious opening attack to the defensive stance that left him vulnerable. He'd sacrificed his body to create a single opening, and he'd exploited it perfectly.
The thought made Neji's blood boil.
• •
After that day, the instructor quietly removed Lee from the rotation of students who sparred with Neji. It was presented as a safety concern. After all, the Hyuga heir had nearly killed another student in a fit of rage. But everyone understood the real message: some gaps were too wide to bridge, and it was cruel to let Lee keep trying.
Lee fought other students instead. Sometimes he won. More often he lost. But each match taught him something new, added another tool to his growing arsenal of techniques. He learned to read body language, to spot tells in his opponents' movements, to exploit the tiny windows of opportunity that existed in every exchange.
But none of them pushed him the way Neji did. None of them forced him to dig deeper, to innovate, to evolve. Fighting them was like training with weighted practice swords. Useful, certainly, but fundamentally different from facing live steel.
A year passed. Lee turned six. And he made a decision that would define everything that came after. If the instructor wouldn't let him fight Neji in class, then he'd take the fight elsewhere.
• •
The sun hung low on the horizon, painting Konoha's streets in shades of amber and gold. Hyuga Neji walked home from the academy with the casual confidence of someone who'd never known real defeat. His backpack sat lightly on his shoulders, filled with scrolls and assignments that he'd complete with the same effortless excellence that marked everything he did.
A figure stepped out from an alley, blocking his path. Rock Lee stood in the middle of the street, that infuriating smile plastered across his face like a challenge. Neji's hand tightened on his backpack strap, frustration flaring instantly. What was the failure doing here? Didn't he understand when he was beaten?
"Hyuga Neji!" Lee's voice rang out clear and strong. "I, Rock Lee, challenge you!" The words were still hanging in the air when Lee charged, giving Neji no time to respond, no chance to refuse. The brazen audacity of it sparked something dark and violent in Neji's chest. Fine. If the fool wanted another beating so badly, Neji would be happy to oblige.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was an execution.
Neji's Gentle Fist technique was precision incarnate, each strike finding vulnerable points with surgical accuracy. Lee tried to defend, tried to counter, but it was like fighting the tide. Every block he attempted was bypassed, every attack he launched was turned against him. Within seconds, his arms hung useless at his sides, the chakra points there sealed by Neji's strikes.
Lee's knees hit the cobblestones. Blood dripped from his nose, his lip, from a cut above his eye that was already swelling shut. His face had transformed into a grotesque mask of bruises and swelling, barely recognizable. But through it all, impossibly, his teeth still showed in that damned smile.
Neji stood over him, chest heaving not from exertion but from the intensity of his own anger. "Why?" The word came out harsh, almost desperate. "Why are you such a fool?"
Lee's response was immediate, unshaken despite the damage he'd taken. "I will become a splendid ninja no matter what." Each word was carefully enunciated through split lips, carrying the weight of absolute conviction.
Footsteps approached from behind. Their instructor had followed, of course. Probably expecting exactly this kind of confrontation. His weathered face was unreadable as he looked down at Lee's broken form.
"Humans have limits," the instructor said quietly. "Remember this."
Lee's hand clenched into a fist, trembling with effort and pain. His voice emerged as barely more than a whisper, but every word was carved from iron. "My limits... aren't for others... to decide…"
[Taijutsu Proficiency has reached the next level!]
Lee felt himself being lifted, the instructor's arms supporting his battered body with surprising gentleness. The world spun, then settled into a comfortable haze. The instructor was mean, yes, but not a bad person. He'd make sure Lee got to the hospital. Probably.
As consciousness began to slip away, Lee's thoughts turned to his next fight with Neji. He'd lasted seven seconds longer this time. Next time, he'd make it ten. Or fifteen. Eventually, he'd make it a full minute. Then two. Then…
Well. He'd worry about the rest when he got there. One step at a time. That was the only way forward.
His smile never wavered, even as darkness claimed him.
• •
Two days later, Lee stood in the academy courtyard with leaves stuck to his face, arms, and torso. The other students had gathered around, their expressions ranging from surprise to grudging respect to outright disbelief.
"Wow, Lee!" Satori-kun's eyes were wide. "I didn't think you'd be able to do this."
Lee flashed a thumbs up, carefully maintaining the chakra flow that kept the leaves in place. "You should always believe in yourself, Satori-kun!" The technique was basic, the first lesson in chakra control, but for someone who couldn't perform even the simplest ninjutsu, it represented a monumental achievement.
"I thought that since you suck at ninjutsu and genjutsu, you just couldn't use chakra at all," another classmate said, voicing what most of them had assumed.
"I can use chakra," Lee explained patiently. "It's just super impossible to shape it for jutsus." His chakra was there, flowing through his coils like everyone else's, but trying to mold it into the complex forms required for ninjutsu felt like trying to thread a needle while wearing boxing gloves. The shapes wouldn't hold, the patterns wouldn't stabilize, the techniques simply wouldn't work.
But this? Pushing chakra to the surface of his skin and maintaining it there? This he could do. It had taken weeks of practice, countless failed attempts, and more frustration than he cared to remember, but he'd done it.
[Chakra Control Proficiency has reached the next level!]
"How are you even going to graduate if you can't use ninjutsu?" someone asked, genuinely curious. "You know we need to learn the clone jutsu, substitution jutsu, and transformation jutsu. You can't do a single one!"
Lee's smile somehow grew even brighter. "I'll graduate with my taijutsu skills."
The class erupted in laughter. The sound echoed off the academy walls, harsh and mocking, but Lee weathered it with the same unshakeable calm he'd shown every other time they'd laughed at him. Let them laugh. They'd been laughing at him since the first day of class, and he'd grown stronger in spite of it. Or maybe because of it.
Nobody became a ninja through taijutsu alone. That was impossible. Everyone knew that. Real ninjas used ninjutsu, performed incredible feats of chakra manipulation that could reshape battlefields and turn the tide of wars. How could punching and kicking possibly compare to summoning elemental techniques or creating illusory duplicates?
But Lee had learned something important in his six years of life: what everyone knew to be true wasn't always actually true. People said taijutsu specialists couldn't succeed, but Lee had never met one, had never seen one fail. For all he knew, the real problem was that nobody had ever tried hard enough.
And if they wouldn't let him graduate through the normal path, he'd simply train until he was strong enough to make them acknowledge him. He'd defeat every student in his year. Then the year above. Then the year above that. He'd keep going until someone had to admit that maybe, just maybe, hard work and taijutsu were enough.
The more they mocked him, the stronger his resolve grew. It was like adding fuel to a fire that already burned bright enough to illuminate the entire academy.
Host: Rock Lee
Age: 6
Rank: Academy Student
Skills: Taijutsu D (43/1000), Ninjutsu F (0.005/10), Genjutsu F (0.005/10), Shurikenjutsu D (0/1000), Chakra Control E (0/100)
Unique Skills: None
Equipment: None
______________________________________________
Time passed in a rhythm of training, fighting, and recovery. Lee challenged Neji regularly now, ambushing him on his way home from the academy with the same cheerful determination that had become his trademark. Sometimes he lasted ten seconds. Sometimes fifteen. Once, memorably, he managed a full minute before Neji's Gentle Fist shut down his chakra network.
What Lee didn't know, couldn't know, was that with each beating, each recovery, each incremental improvement, Neji's hatred grew deeper. The Hyuga prodigy watched with mounting fury as Lee's recovery time decreased from weeks to days to mere hours. It defied everything Neji understood about the natural order of the world.
Talent was supposed to be absolute. Genius was supposed to triumph over effort. The gifted were meant to soar while the talentless remained grounded, no matter how hard they struggled. That was fate. That was destiny.
But Rock Lee was changing, evolving, improving in ways that shouldn't have been possible. And if someone like Lee could defy fate through sheer stubborn refusal to accept his limitations, then what did that say about Neji's own circumstances? About the cage seal on his forehead? About his place in the Hyuga clan's hierarchy?
The questions haunted him, and the only way to silence them was to prove, again and again, that Lee's progress meant nothing. That the gap between them remained insurmountable. That fate was real and unbreakable and absolute. Even if he had to beat Lee within an inch of his life to prove it.
______________________________________________
The day before graduation, Lee found Neji in the usual spot. The sun had already set, leaving Konoha bathed in moonlight and shadow. Perfect conditions for a final test before they both moved on to whatever came next.
"Neji-kun!" Lee pointed at him, that infuriating smile still in place. "This will be our final battle before graduation tomorrow."
Neji's response was immediate and cold. "Follow me."
They walked in silence through Konoha's darkening streets, past the commercial district and into the forest that surrounded the village. The trees grew denser, the underbrush thicker, until finally Neji stopped in a clearing that seemed to exist outside of time itself.
The moon hung bright and full above them, its light filtering through the canopy to illuminate the moss-covered ground. Dense foliage surrounded the clearing on all sides, forming a natural barrier that would hide them from any casual observer. At the center, a small pond reflected the night sky like polished obsidian.
It was beautiful. Serene. And completely isolated. The perfect place for a fight that neither of them wanted interrupted.
Lee pulled out his wooden nunchaku and began twirling them with practiced ease. The weapons had become extensions of his body over the past year, their weight and balance as familiar as his own heartbeat. "If I can defeat a genius like you that everyone acknowledges, no one will be able to deny my potential as a shinobi."
Neji's Byakugan activated with a pulse of chakra, veins bulging at his temples as his all-seeing eyes locked onto Lee. "I will ensure that you never become a shinobi." Each word was enunciated with perfect clarity, a pronouncement of absolute judgment. "Byakugan!"
The air between them crackled with tension. Lee caught one end of his nunchaku in his armpit while holding his other palm out in a defensive stance. His smile had faded, replaced by an expression of intense focus.
"Neji-kun," Lee said quietly. "I wouldn't be standing here in front of you right now if fate was real."
Something dark flashed across Neji's face. His hands formed the Gentle Fist stance with controlled fury. "Fate would not allow me to become the stepping stone of someone like you who can't even do basic ninjutsu. Your place in life has already been determined. You cannot change this. Not even I am exempt from this fact."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implications that neither boy fully understood yet. Neji was seven years old, Lee was six, but the ideological battle they were about to fight would echo far beyond this moonlit clearing.
"It is your destiny to lose to me, failure!" Neji exploded forward. "It's pointless to fight against it!"
Lee's nunchaku came up to meet him, and the clearing erupted with the sounds of combat.
Unknown to either boy, two adult shinobi watched from the shadows at the clearing's edge. One wore the standard Konoha jonin vest. The other was distinctive in a green spandex bodysuit that somehow seemed both ridiculous and intimidating.
Might Guy's eyes never left the fighting boys, his expression uncharacteristically serious. Next to him, the other jonin, their academy instructor, shook his head slowly.
"This won't end well," the instructor murmured.
"Perhaps not," Guy agreed, his voice soft but carrying absolute conviction. "But watch closely. You're witnessing something rare. That boy..." He gestured toward Lee, who was already bleeding from a dozen different strikes but refused to fall. "He has the spirit of youth burning brighter than anyone I've ever seen."
The instructor grunted, unconvinced. In his experience, spirit alone wasn't enough. The ninja world was built on talent, on bloodlines, on the kind of natural gifts that Rock Lee simply didn't possess. But he'd learned long ago not to argue with Might Guy about matters of spirit and determination.
They watched in silence as the battle unfolded, neither man willing to interrupt what might be the most important fight of these boys' young lives.
In the moonlit clearing, Rock Lee and Hyuga Neji clashed with everything they had, their battle a microcosm of an eternal question: could hard work truly overcome natural talent?
The answer, like most truths, would be written in blood and bruises.