A great thunderhead stood on the south skies. A flash, and then a roar swept across the forest. Leaves stirred. The target would not escape, come rain or the roar of wind through the forest to cover him. But Hayate would have to leave part of the job in his squadmates' hands: the rain was not something he could fight with a kunai, his sickness not something he could shrug off or burn away with a jutsu.
Aoba, still using his sunglasses despite the fading evening light, signalled to move forward. Through the trees a particular spot of grass peaked, the spot where the informant was supposed to meet his Iwa contacts. The man had been an agent for the Leaf, and he knew some very important - if incomplete - information on the daimyo's military deployments and Konoha's boarder patrols. Tonight he planned to sell it all away to Iwa. This team was deployed for capture, or, if necessary, takedown. Hayate scanned the area and jumped one tree closer to the meeting point.
"Tag!" Raido shouted. Three explosions rocked the forest. A great tree groaned. Hayate leaped away as it crashed and slid down the side of his tree, branches exploding in every direction. He landed and ducked down, avoiding a large branch flying through where his head would have been. While the sticks were still flying he stuck his head up and scanned the endless rows of trunks, both to look for their attackers and to check on his squadmates. Genma was crouched in another tree, toothpick in hand, ready to use as a weapon. Raido pushed on an awkward bulge in his leg, setting the broken bone and holding it in place with chakra. Aoba slammed his palm into the ground. Summoning lines shot out, releasing his crow swarm: cover from unfriendly eyes. They began swirling around the Konoha-nin, dodging and weaving to distract enemies.
A puff of smoke caught Hayate's eyes. Then another, and another. The crows de-summoned if they strayed too far out of the swirl, not how the jutsu was supposed to work. Several more vanished in another puff of smoke.
"There's a sphere barrier - it's killing the crows!" Aoba shouted, another peal of thunder cutting his sentence in two. The trees were blowing fifty feet away, but nearby the wind was dead.
Genma made a shadow clone of his toothpick and launched it where the barrier was supposed to be. It burst at the same point.
A crow swooped toward Aoba, then several, then many, all cawing. Aoba slashed his hand and all the summons vanished. "Hold your breath, the barrier is filling with poison," he said.
Hayate had much experience controlling his lungs. He sucked in a breath and held it, directing chakra to the region. Most barriers didn't travel underground, especially ones designed for holding air. Hayate knew his Earth Style, his second affinity, was not up to snuff yet. At least, for combat. For escape from a seal, he could manage. He cursed the trap in his mind and formed the hand seals, then pressed his palm into the earth. A hole opened up, descending at an angle toward the edge of the barrier. Hayate waved for his squadmates to join him.
Aoba supported Raido and brought him over. Genma took the lead, following down the tunnel. Aoba and Raido began down, then a shout echoed up. Hayate cringed, it sounded painful. He switched seals and stomped the ground, the chakra and vibrations providing feedback on the consistency of the ground. There were softened paths weaving under the earth, some small, some big, and something that felt like flesh. Badger summons.
Hayate switched jutsu. The ground grabbed Genma and pulled him away from a badger. The grass spat him out several yards away. He had a nasty slash down his neck and across his collarbone. Hayate considered sealing off his tunnel, but hopefully a badger summon would die from the poison. And the badgers could pop up anywhere if they wanted. He repeated the sensing earth jutsu, stomping a foot again. He counted the badgers - twelve waited, spares underneath the barrier to leave no openings.
Iwa had to be responsible. Either the meeting location was a misdirect or they estimated that Konoha had learned of the turncoat and prepared accordingly. Which meant the turncoat could be nearby, or he could have already escaped.
Genma walked to his bleeding comrade (conserving oxygen) and began sealing the wounds with a quick and dirty medical jutsu. Hayate signalled no escape downward to Aoba.
Aoba, keeping his movements to a minimum to save oxygen, signaled many jutsu against barrier, and he raised his shoulders in question.
We might be able to overwhelm the barrier, Hiyate thought. But maybe not. He cursed himself for letting his fuuinjutsu knowledge slack. If he had studied like he thought Konoha-nin should, he would probably know how to break this. As it was now, though, they had only a few minutes of air for trial and error - if his teammates could keep up with him. His cough had given him plenty of practice in lung control that they likely lacked.
They'd only tested the barrier with small things so far - toothpicks and crows - so maybe something more substantial could make the difference. Hayate drew his sword and moved toward where he knew the barrier to be.
Then he remembered Raido's shout: Raido only had a minute of air left, at most.
Hayate tossed a shuriken. It hit the barrier with a wisp of smoke and fell to the ground. Hayate glanced at it; one of the tips had been shorted. So the barrier could damage normal metal. It took a lot of energy to do that. Good. A smart barrier would only use it's energy to keep objects with in, not pointlessly burn the metal. It could be overwhelmed, because it was wasteful.
Hiyate drew his sword back for a thrust and channeled chakra into it. A large man landed in front of him, on the other side of the barrier, a Iwa headband tied across his bulging bicep. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked in a shockingly high voice; Hayate had to keep himself from laughing.
The man slapped his hands together into a Snake seal. A dome of earth shot up to trap Hayate. He leaped back from the edge of barrier. One seal? This guy knew his earth-style. He landed in a tree and waved for his squadmates to get off the ground.
The man changed to a Boar seal and back to a Snake seal; the ground at the base of Hayate's tree became soft, like tilled soil. The tree began tipping. Hayate leaped free, aiming for a tree at the edge of the barrier. There some branches stuck through - the seal must have been designed to not damage what was already there when it activated, only prevent new stuff from moving through. Perhaps it would be weaker where branches poked out. He landed, grounded his feet with chakra, and thrust his sword into the open air.
The air crackled and smoke rose from his sword. Hiyate could feel the drain of chakra to keep his sword intact.
Aoba looked towards the crackling and, seeing Hayate, formed a fire jutsu. He blast it against the barrier. Genma swiftly joined the effort, throwing a kunai at the sky and duplicating it into thousands. Their puffs filled the sky until they had a ninja-smoke roof. The roar of the flame and the crackling of the barrier almost drowned out the nearing thunder. With a bright flash the barrier failed and wind swept their smoke roof into fleeing strands.
Twenty shuriken shot from Genma toward the Iwa shinobi. Hayate doubted Aoba could bring out his crows again courtesy of the poison. He jumped down from the tree, placing the trunk between him and the enemy shinobi. He scanned for additional targets and, finding none, created three shadow clones and searched for Raito. Raito was bent over a knee, panting, facial scar hidden. He wasn't bleeding any more, but he hadn't helped overwhelm the barrier and he didn't look good. Poison. They needed to win, and fast. He signaled Aoba to provide a distraction, and one of his clones stepped out, sword at the ready.
Aoba leaped into the air and blasted another impressive fire jutsu, aimed so the easiest way to escape would place the enemy close to Hayate. The Iwa shinobi brought a stone dome up around himself instead, protecting him for a moment from both Genma and Aoba's attacks. Aoba released the fire jutsu, conserving chakra. It wasn't uncommon for an Earth Style user to hide and pop up from another location, putting them all on their toes ready to leap.
The dome split apart, and the halves launched outward, one crashing into a tree and the other sliding to a stop. The shinobi stood in the middle, arms outstretched. He shouted and slapped his hands together. Several hunks of stone from one half tore loose and shot at Genma, intended to crush him in the middle. Genma launched into the air, a bit slow thanks to his busted leg. But he was good with chakra, Hayate trusted Genma could play a support role and keep himself intact.
Hayate's clone charged the Iwa nin, leading with tagged kunai to prevent a counter-jutsu. Even as the Iwa nin threw himself aside, dodging the blast, the ground stretched up into a great spike where Genma would land. Genma twisted in the air, moving his torso so as not to be impaled on the spike. Hayate could see the rough landing coming, and willed Genma to get his feet under him. But more importantly, the Iwa-nin hadn't even made a seal: that spike was someone else's jutsu.
The enemy nin could have made a clone and sent it underground to help. If Hayate used the earth sensing technique he could know, but it would give away his actual position. And in order to shape that spike right the clone would have to see Genma's trajectory, so the user was above ground. So far there had been no sign of other ninja - solo work was rare, so it was more likely the other Iwa-nin were waiting around somewhere or were escorting the turncoat to Iwagakure.
Genma landed hard on his injured leg, the bone pushed out of alignment, giving his leg a funny bend. All of the hiding Hayates winced. The soil under Genma turned and a great pair of dirty badger claws shot out. Genma whipped out a kunai and met them. He saved himself from being gored, but the force of the badger-claw overwhelmed his other leg and he fell to his back. The badger's head popped from the soil and it shoved its claws at the downed Genma. Aoba raced to his aid.
"Charge him," Hayate ordered his shadow clones, indicating the Iwa-nin. Not the way he normally executed the Cresent Moon attack, but they would get the job done. Aoba would to handle the badgers, he needed to focus on the source of the problem. He launched himself up the trunk, but paused not high off the ground. The moment his clones started the attack he launched from tree to tree toward the crumbled half-dome of stone. The other half was still intact, and as such, Hayate could see that it was empty. The crumbled half, though...
Hayate leaped and drove his sword downward, silent. His sword fit through a crack and stabbed something soft. He heard a breath slip from a pair of lungs. Hayate twisted his sword a quarter turn, and what he stabbed suddenly became hard. Earth clone, he concluded, and likely the source of the spike: the clone was made when the Iwa-nin hid in the dome, and he launched the stone apart so the clone could hide inside and not suffer any of the attacks the actual nin drew. The clone could peek through the cracks of the rubble, and tweak the ground at critical points in the battle, providing his maker with his own backup...
Hayate withdrew his sword and glanced to his own clones. The Iwa-nin punched one out, and took a nasty slash from the second. The third clone fell on him from above. The Iwa-nin barely slapped the sword aside and caught the clone around the neck with his other hand. A hard squeeze dispersed it. Hayate was down to one clone keeping the original busy.
The snapping of bones sounded from behind him. Hayate spun around. The giant Iwa-nin stood behind him, arms now limp, but Hayate imagined that not a moment ago they were poised to crush him. The nin's limp body hung by the head from Raido's hands, twisted at a horrible angle. The good, old fashioned, chakra enhance neck snap. Raito was pale, his eyes lolled and his breathing came ragged. Hayate noticed the "nin" his shadow clone was fighting turned into a pile of stone. Raito dropped the corpse, and then fell on top of it, unable to stand. Genma would have given the standard antidote mix, but it obviously wasn't helping Raito. Not a surprise, to be honest; "exotic poisons" really weren't that hard to come by in a ninja village with vested interest in obtaining them.
So, though the cuts down his neck were closed, Raito needed medical attention for the poison; Genma could still manage a support role; and with the chakra drain of the fight Hayate knew he had to get out of the rain. Aoba and Genma would have to continue the mission. The wind blew, as if affirming his thoughts.
"Thanks for the save," Hayate said to Raito's wheezing form. "Looks like I can already return the favor." He carefully lifted Raito and set him across his shoulders, and closed the distance to where Genma again set his leg with little more than a grimace. Hayate tried not to cringe - if Genma could manage the actual pain with so little reaction, Hayate should take the thought of it with a straight face.
He landed next to Aoba and his coughing got the best of him, turning into a fit. Aoba spoke his thoughts for him, however.
"You need to take him back, we'll finish the mission. I'll release my reserve crows to search the region. Hopefully we can catch them before they reach the mountains."
Hayate nodded through his coughs. Aoba offered Genma a hand. Genma stood gingerly, but before they could race off Hayate held his hand up for them to wait. He used a little chakra to overcome the coughing fit and extracted a particular spherical pill. He pushed into into Genma's palm. "A mild chakra pill and pain reliever," he explained in a halting way to keep from starting his cough again.
Genma nodded, but just pushed it into a pocket for use later. Stubborn ox. Hayate shook his head, and with the "all clear" signal they took off in opposite directions.
Even with the wind at his back, it whistled past his ears as he raced. And while the wind might be helping him, it also pushed the thunder clouds closer. Hayate squinted to keep his eyes from drying and reminded himself to ask Aoba about those glasses. The thunder rocked behind him, spurring him on.
Rain roared against the canopy, and every step would be dangerous if not for chakra. His reserves thinned. The light was almost gone under the leaves, until lightening glistened off a thousand soaked branches. Hayate ran along the ground, lest he misjudge a jump in the dark. He almost coughed. Already his throat was more sore than normal. He pushed the third of his chakra pills into his mouth and focused on his route, his speed.
Raito would not die on his shoulders.