Part 2: Ravaged by Savages (continued)
"He's stopped," the tanned, broad-shouldered man who now towered over Tenten wiped his brow in undisguised relief as he kept his eyes peeled over the horizon. "He must be distracted by what's happening below."
The chaos on the battlefield had taken a turn for the worse, with the appearance of a gigantic, black beast now adding tremendous pressure and wrecking new havoc on the Division One forces. By a stroke of luck, Tenten and her four new-found allies had managed to escape Kakuzu's demonic clutches. As soon as the surrounding area had become the stomping ground of the new monster, the zombie's attention had been diverted, as if the Chunin girl who had managed to outwit him scarcely mattered to him anymore.
"Thank you, Tenten-san," the muscular youth now managed a tentative grin, as he gripped the shoulder of his partner tightly. "If not for you, Yabuza and I would have been…"
"We're still in danger," Kimuya winced in mild discomfort as he held on to his right forearm. "It's worse than ever… we'll never be able to…"
Takuma hushed his comrade once again, obviously irritated by his tendency to whine and complain incessantly. Tenten was peering over the edge of the cliff, absent-mindedly ignoring the attention of the men behind her as she tried to take in what was occurring on the battlegrounds. The beach area was now completely devastated by the rampaging tailed-beast, its six tails causing much destruction among both the Shinobi Allied Forces and the White Zetsu horde. Bodies were sent flying through the air each time one of the tails smashed the ground or the cliff walls into oblivion, as the beast tore up the landscape in its wake.
"We must move further up!" Mugi was now saying, his arm still placed protectively over his stricken partner, who remained visibly shaken by their near-death experience with Kakuzu. Tenten nodded silently as she picked herself up, their two-minute breather sufficient for now to recover slightly from their ordeal. She clenched her fists as she realised that Kakuzu could easily have ripped apart two more victims by now and re-formed his elemental hearts. However, with Kimuya injured and Yabuza overcome by fear at the moment, she could not possibly get them to return to face Kakuzu and prevent him from killing more people. Besides, the vast area was still filled with battle-cries and screams of the opposing forces and with many other lives at stake in the presence of the Zetsus and other Edo zombies, there were more people they could help and more enemies they could take down. With just a moment's more hesitation as she took one last glance towards the direction of the resurrected Akatsuki demon, she followed the four young men as they moved quickly up the path that would lead them to the top of the cliff.
Along the way, the quintet helped save numerous lives as they took down White Zetsu clones with their diverse tactics. Mugi and Yabuza worked in perfect synchrony with their Earth powers, while Tenten's weapons proved essential as well. Though the cloth-binding techniques of the Suna youths were less effective at the moment, Takuma and Kimuya were by no means useless as they cut down the clones with some credible swordsmanship.
Another tremor shook the earth and Tenten's heart now raced in trepidation as she saw from the height at they were at, how Chouza was now directly assaulting the tailed-beast with his Akimichi clan's natural abilities to expand his body size into its gigantic form. Even from this vantage view, Tenten could tell with her sharp eyesight that her Konoha senior had rescued their white-haired general, who had been locked in intense battle with the monster.
"Listen up!" she now heard one of the squad leaders holler from one of the ridges below. "Everyone who can, be on standby! General Darui may need some range attacks from us soon! Those of us who have such techniques, get ready to provide some aid! Sealing teams, get ready to…"
As if on cue, with a speed so unbelievably incredible for a creature of its size, the beast slammed one of its tails right into the wall of the cliff where the quintet was gathered. Tenten rocketed into the air instinctively, releasing some chains to pull Takuma and Kimuya along with her, noticing that the Iwa Chunin had also used their techniques to shield themselves from the impact.
"Tenten-san, we have to get back to re-group with our sealing team," Takuma noted grimly as soon as they landed on an elevated boulder. "Kimuya and I…"
"Takuma!"
Everything happened so fast, no one else managed to react in time. Rising up from the earth, two Zetsu clones were no more than a metre away from Takuma, and both now leapt at him from behind. Tenten was just a few seconds away from summoning her weapons as she recovered from the impact of the ground exploding all over them, but those few seconds she did not have. Just before the clones pounced on Takuma, his comrade had leapt in front of him to take the blow. The clones started draining Kimuya's chakra at once, his horrified expression quickly overtaken by the draining of colour from his face. By the time Tenten's shurikens pierced into the clones and caused one of them to retreat underground, Kimuya's neck had been savagely broken by the second clone, which now lay lifeless over him with three shurikens embedded at the back of its head.
"No!"
The ground exploded once again, and Mugi and Yabuza now picked up Tenten and Takuma respectively as they leapt into the air once again. Takuma's hoarse shriek tore through Tenten's heart as she saw the body of comrade she had barely known for two hours plummet into the crashing waves below. She bit her lower lip in an attempt to keep herself from crying out loud as well, although a single tear streamed down her left cheek, lost in the trail of perspiration trickling down her face.